As the Guardian notes this morning:
Peter Mandelson has said he has resigned his membership of the Labour party to avoid causing it “further embarrassment” after more revelations about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
The peer, who was sacked as US ambassador last year because of his links to Epstein, featured in documents released by the US Department of Justice on Friday related to the convicted sex offender.
As Mandelson added:
Allegations which I believe to be false that he made financial payments to me 20 years ago, and of which I have no record or recollection, need investigating by me.
While doing this, I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour party and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party.
Madelson was always the one to resign, perpetually sure that he would be needed back. One can hope that the game is over now.
Mandelson added:
I have dedicated my life to the values and success of the Labour party and in taking my decision, I believe I am acting in its best interests.
Except we know that is not true. If it were, he would not have been forced to resign as many times as he has. Mandelson's dedication has always been to Mandelson above all else. And we also now know, as the FT has reported, that:
Lord Peter Mandelson told Jeffrey Epstein in 2009 that the boss of JPMorgan should “mildly threaten” Britain's chancellor over a tax on banker bonuses proposed by the government in which Mandelson was serving as business secretary, according to newly released documents.
Mandelson was not working in the interests of labour, the government of which he was a part, or the UK when offering that advice to J P Morgan in 2009. He was working for himself, using Epstein as an emissary.
There's corruption in this world.
And damed corruption.
And then there's neoliberal corruption, personified by Mandelson.
And of the three, the last ranks high on the scales of perniciousness for the consequential impact it has.
Now, three questions.
First, when will Mandelson be out of the Lords?
Second, when will a police investigation begin?
Third, when can we sweep Westminster clean of such people?
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Report by Dan Niedle here
https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2026/01/31/mandelson-epstein-panama-tax-emails/
About the possible purchase of a property in Brazil
Mandelson deserves to be castigated. But what he does is no different from, e.g. Douglas Hurd speaking at a conference on info’ tech in the 1990s in Bx. Somebody paid him to spout the nonesese he did. Ditto so many many others. This comes back to the point I made on a previous blog: politicians, current or ex, should be allowed to work (unless you are an ex-PM and in receipt of largesse from the state to the tune of £110k/year – for life) but that must not be connected to what you did in gov. Ex-politicos must also be forbidden from contacting gov’ unless it is something mundane: a tax return etc. The other side of the coin being: as a politico, current or ex, the receiveing of “gifts” needs to be forbidden. Set a boundary of £500. The point being? the Epstein’s of this world will always be with us, the delicate flowers that are our body-politsic need protecting from them.
BTW: looks like Epstein played all side & was good mates with the Russians. Somebody knew all this back in 2019
Politicians, current ones, already work, full time (well they’re supposed to because we pay them to) as MPs/government ministers. They’re paid very well, more than the vast majority of people in this country. The fact that so many of them are so greedy and entitled that they rake in loads doing other “work” is a national disgrace about which nothing is done to rein them in which is another national disgrace. And of course quite a few of them are already filthy rich when they first enter parliament.
Oh one other thing, let us not forget Mandelson’s protoge – a certain Mr Streeting – who some think will take over from Starmer – possibly this year. I am confident that if this happens, precisely nothing will happen to Mandelson – regardless of what comes out, indeed, arguably Streeting will have an interest in burying it.
LINO has terminal cancer/corruption – far too late to do anything – better if it is allowed to die.
Time and again we see people in power displaying “dark triad” traits – narcisism, machiavelianism, and psychopathy. I’m obviously not making a formal diagnosis of Mandelson, but his behaviour has seemed to correspond for as long as he has been in the news (~40 years?). We see this with so many nefarious actors – Trump, Putin, Johnson, are three that have caused or are causing chaos currently and there are so many more.
Saying neoliberalism is the cause of this behaviour seems to miss that people like this would cause chaos in other systems (and have in the past). Neoliberalism seems like an enabler rather than the root cause.
When will we recognise people such as this for what they are, and call them out for their behaviours rather than just blaming “the system” ? It seems like we are happy to enable the psychopaths et al as long as they are on our side. Or am I just being naive ?
“Or am I just being naive”
Nope. 2400 years ago Socrates, Plato, Xenophon etc grappled with the problem of how to regulate politics. How to not just keep politicians honest, but how to identify good ones.
One approach was: education. Popper in his “Open Society & Its Enemies” accused Plato et al of authoritarianism – without engaging with the main problem = how to get good politiciand and how to regulate them.
The emergence of politicos such as Mandelson, B.Liar, Cam-moron, The Leuttuce, Johnson, Starmer/McSweeney shows that we are no nearer to answering a 2400 year old problem. So, no, you ain’t naive.
(I’m not convinced that philosopher politicos are the answer btw – but at least this is worthy of consideration vs alternatives – 100k Tory party members electing.. an assortment of unspeakables)
You can add Dan Goyal’s fourth part – a quadrat?- to that, greed as a character trait. We have indulged such people far too long.
Dan is good
From Twitter
https://x.com/PaulGosling1/status/2018020917658501200
The tragedy about the humiliation of Peter Mandelson is that John Prescott isn’t around to enjoy it.
🙂
Prescott had his own guilty secrets- his cheating on his wife. When this was discovered and he was no longer bearing the strain of constantly covering it up I noticed his long noticed habit of muddling up his words stopped.
I’m afraid we are a long way from sweeping people like Mandelson out of Westminster.
Only a very small number of people who go into politics do so for altruistic reasons, and many of the good ones become corrupted by the system once they get there.
Former Labour press officer, John Booth, wrote this piece about “The Mandelson legacy” in Lobster journal.
https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/article/issue/91/the-mandelson-legacy/
It is interesting reading.
VERY interesting reading.
Thanks Ian
The question in my mind is how do we recruit people of integrity and ability to stand as MPs and prevent those with wealth and ‘behind the scenes’ power and contacts from dominating the political parties of the Left.
Those on the right exist to promote wealth and selfish power.
“how do we recruit people of integrity and ability to stand as MPs”
1. Ban all “donations”
2. Ensure all representations from business are made in a meeting with independent observers, with minutes taken, ideally broadcast live.
3. Thinktanks and organisations must declare the source of their funding.
4. Have a public enquiry with recommendations.
I can see no reason for oligarchs, press barons, Big Food and Big Pharma, to have private meetings with the Government.
Agreed
And ban foreign ownership of the press and multiple outlet ownership AND require and or opt Boards with wide representation.
Mandelson is a supreme disappointment that never fails to deliver. I think his is a background of tremendous opportunity that he is not prepared to give others today. I also honestly believe that he is a political sociopath – he actually does not like the people he says he represents. He actually treats them with contempt. They are a means to and end to him and nothing more.
But, as with Mike Parr above, we have to remember that he is a product of our polity. It is the system that produces the Mandelsons of this world that needs addressing, as much as the unprincipled, corruptible Mandelson himself.
Again agree with Mike Parr and PSR – why isn’t there a campaign – say by the Greens to outlaw this whole corruption – donors should be illegal , 2nd jobs insider contracts etc – Its corrupt from top to bottom.
His murky dealings should be a police matter but they won’t be.
I was so disappointed the BBC gave “Mandy” airtime to gloss over Donald Trump’s ambitions on Greenland a few weeks ago. A shouting at the radio moment was needed! What is wrong with people who keep giving him chances, including some otherwise perceptive journalists and politicians ? Are they stupid ? Or is it all one great big corrupt mess ?
As for Starmer – what ghastly judgement to rehabilitate Mandelson in the ambassador role. No surprise there.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Mandelson situation is the way in which so much of his previous achievements really just boil down to pure luck or chance.
His rise to eminence through the offices of his first political patron, Neil Kinnock, before the arrival on the scene of Tony Blair, is mentioned in this book about the Kinnock years and the start of the move toward New Labour:
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/1383-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory?srsltid=AfmBOoqC1InwURJsQ5IOeTR8cOzmP3BLosnphvuC2P27NhBNh1V66SJ1
Enough said!
Thanks for the link to the book. I knew a chap well who worked @ a senior position in Kinnocks cabinet when he was @ the European Commission. He observed that Mr K was a good ideas man but not very organised. Overall view – would have been a bad PM. He also observed that Mrs Kinnock was the real brains in the family. Met Kinnock once socially – nice enough chap.
Might Andrew Broadbent and others concerned for a (more) genuine democracy find the attached article of interest/use?
https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2026/02/02/starmer-gorton/
She is exactly tyhe last sort of candidate we need in parliament: a corporate lobbyist for a failed system of economics imposed at enormous cost on the people of this country.
Thank you, all, particularly Richard and Mike.
Neil Kinnock was warned about Mandelson by Tony Benn in 1987, but did not listen. John Smith kept Mandelson out, but his untimely death in 1994 heralded a return under Blair.
Mandelson was also rumbled some years before, circa 1980, by Simon Wren-Lewis, something at Oxford.
An investigation into Mandelson should also include the sales of Sempra and World Pay by RBS and disclosure of the EU bail outs before the official announcements.
Some of the UK’s aid is given to the Gates and Clinton foundations. The French government gives money to Gates. The Australian government gives money to Clinton.
Some of the UK money is to be spent according to a mandate. The rest can be spent at the discretion of the foundations.
I often thought the money was given so that politicians and officials could curry favour with powerful and well connected people like Gates and Clinton.
There should be a separate investigation into these donations and if Epstein, friend of both Clinton and Gates, and others subject to allegations of improper behaviour were involved with the aid, including site visits.
Perhaps, Richard could ask Clive Lewis and Prem Sikka to raise in Parliament. I have my doubts about Lewis, but a lot of respect for Sikka.
I will talk to Prem.
Thank you, Richard.
Mandelson is totally beneath contempt and always has been. The whole political system is absolutely rotten and yet the Labour Party has not attempted to institute any significant reform. It has taken a long time for its traditional supporters to realise that that there is no help in that direction, but it is happening. How Starmer has the temerity to call for Mandy to resign his peerage is beyond belief – he must know that it cannot be done (he keeps the title whatever happens). Starmer is as guilty as Mandy! The system makes it such that Lords and Dames are almost bullet-proof. A cursory reading of Labour Party history shows that if there is one thing they are very good at – its betrayal. One reason I could never join it , after all I am someone who cares (I hope so anyway).
I think the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 might be updated very soon.
Interesting piece by Faisal Islam on the BBC website today about Peter Mandelson lobbying the Labour Government not to levy a tax on bankers bonuses, in which Islam quotes from Alastair Darling’s book, ‘Back from the Brink: 1000 Days at Number 11’ in which he quotes,
‘Mr. Dimon (Chief Executive of JP Morgan) was very, very angry.. he said that his Bank bought a lot of UK debt and he wondered if that was now such a good idea. I (AD) pointed out that they bought our debt because it was good business for them. He went on to say they were thinking of building a new office in London but they had to reconsider that now.’
While the office got built, he bonus tax remained and J P Morgan did not, in the end cease buying UK gilts, this episode is an incredible live example of the relative power of Government and financial markets, of the actual dynamics of the ‘bond vigilantes’.
It also seems to be a good corrective to the current dogma that the UK Government is in hock to the bond markets.
See the papers on the Tax Policy Associates website.
Thanks, that’s shocking stuff.
Why did Starmer push his appointment through. Was it because he thought he had a similar skill-set to Trump? Did that seem like a masterstroke? Mandelson is clearly finished. But surely it must be all over for Starmer?
Morgan McSweeney relied on Mandelson, apparently. That is the explanation.
Wall to wall Mandelson headlines – but why?
What’s unusual about this man, long known as the Prince of Darkness?
We now appear to have PROOF that MIGHT force some long overdue punitive action but really – is anyone surprised?
Mandelson is not especially evil compared with his colleagues.
He is the NORM.
He follows in the footsteps of a trail of treasonous politicians whose priorities were never “a politics of care” but those of self-interest.
Bungs, paid lobbying, parachuted in placemen, politicians and spads on the make, derailing democracy, betraying our country, lying, deceiving, despising, corrupting, interfering.
Where was the public outrage when Mandelson was devoting time “every day” to destroying Jeremy Corbyn, with the help of Morgan MacSweeney, to replace him with the “forensic” (if you don’t like my principles I have others) Starmer.
Is the “Fraud” of Starmer/MacSweeney/Mahmood & Labour Together in subverting the Labour Party’s internal processes to destroy the twice-elected LOTO, not worthy of equal blanket coverage?
Did not the Forde Report expose the party that sustained Mandelson, repeatedly resurrecting him, only for it, and its author to be ignored?
Will we see questions asked about Wes Streeting’s financial links to private heathcare? Or the electoral crimes of Labour Together’s covert funding by lobbyists for Israel such as Trevor Chinn, who also poured money into the campaigns of many leading Labour figures.
Chinn is not on our front pages, he never is.
About Mandelson, I say what Isaid about Starmer, Johnson and Truss – we knew all we needed to know about each of these awful people, and the political cesspit of lies which spawned them, long before they were appointed/elected/corruptly, deceitfully & stupidly anointed to high office.
But the UK state would rather concentrate on unlawfully wrongfully, callously deporting our non-white citizenry, and locking up retired vicars armed with cardboard placards while kow-towing to White House sex offenders and convicted fraudsters and Israel’s genocidaires.
Today I am sickened by the hypocrisy of Guardian editors, sub-editors and leader-writers who discover their dissident voices only after the target of their rhetoric has already jumped off the political balcony.
Starmer’s chosen co-conspirator in the Labour Fraud-factory, deserves punishment, but he must not be allowed to divert us from the corrupt takeover of British politics by foreign unlawfully accumulated extractive wealth.
(I’m a bit upset.)
You are rightly upset.
Lots of intelligent comments. Now once we sort out the politicians it’s the turn of the ‘royals’..the huge elephant in the room that we keep ignoring.The ‘privileged personage’ won’t admit culpabilty. …. refuses to give evidence..never expressed any regret….mum pays the bill to prove his innocence..brother hides him in one of their many castles/estates…so he can go riding everyday…The whole system set up in favour of privilege….Aegean stables comes to mind.