What to think of Peter Mandelson's conduct?
I will place my cards face up on the table. I have always loathed the man.
I have met him once. I don't think he liked me any more than I liked him. We met when he was Business Secretary, and I was working on tackling tax haven abuse, an issue popular with Downing Street and the Treasury at the time. I was welcomed in both. The message had not reached Mandelson.
He was the 'Prince of Darkness' for decades.
And for decades, questions over his ethics have rightly been raised and never satisfactorily answered.
Now the question is not just whether he has been corrupt, but whether he might also have committed crimes. After all, isn't sharing secret government documents an offence under the Official Secrets Act? Why just investigate this as potential misconduct in public office, from which investigations nothing ever arises, when it seems so much more serious than that? Others will need to decide, but that, surely, is an investigation that needs to be undertaken.
Then, the need for an urgent update to the Titles Deprivation Act of 1917 seems to be required.
And then Mandelson needs to be stripped of his title.
Meanwhile, Starmer and the security services also need to answer questions. How could they not have known about what he was doing? The chance that blind eyes were turned appears to be horribly high. Starmer cannot avoid that allegation. We will not let him do so. And the questions should also be asked of Mandelson's great friend in No. 10, and the supposed power behind Starmer, Morgan McSweeney. Is Starmer, in fact, just Mandelson's pick to advance his own agenda of hate against the left of Labour?
Meanwhile, in all this, might we recall that Epstein might have been an enabler of financial wrongdoing, but the real victims here are the women and girls who were abused, and not one of the absuers has come close to a proper punishment for what they did, excepting one woman, who might have been guilty of offences, but was clearly not the only person who was.
The Epstein case is not going away anytime soon.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
There are three criteria for a prime ministerial crisis and they are loss of parliamentary confidence, clear electoral liability, and erosion of authority. They have all been met, even if the commentariat has not yet fully acknowledged it yet.
First, there is clear evidence that Starmer approved an appointment he must have known carried serious reputational risk. Labour insiders at the time indicated that ethical advisers had briefed him on Mandelson’s Epstein connections long before the Ambassador job was confirmed. The fact that this was still pushed through, overruling security and propriety concerns, has fed an unarguable narrative of poor judgement across party lines.
Second, the story has obviously become an electoral liability. Opposition parties are seizing on the disclosure, urging transparency about what was known and when, and pressing for independent investigations. And it’s resonating with the public precisely because it evokes patterns of arrogance and privilege rather than accountability.
Third, the question of authority is now in question. Starmer’s public statements, defensive manoeuvring, and reliance on procedural reform have surely scuppered any remaining confidence in his stewardship. The atmosphere in Westminster suggests that MPs and commentators alike are realising that this issue won’t go away.
Beyond Starmer, this whole saga draws attention to a deeper problem in British public life: the culture of entitlement and the treatment of women exposed by the wider Epstein case. The revelations about Epstein’s network, and the Royal Family’s associations, especially those involving Prince Andrew, highlight not just individual misconduct but the enduring attitudes of powerful men towards their female victims. Coming after years of institutional failings to prioritise victims’ voices, I think there is now a compelling case for a rigorous inquiry into whether Andrew should remain in the line of succession (which he currently does, despite King Charles’ actions), given that symbolic positions matter as much as legal accountability in shaping norms and standards of public life.
The political and moral stakes are high, and commentary now needs to catch up quickly with the reality of Starmer’s predicament and also the attitudes of powerful men towards women.
May will be the month of his demise, I think.
But how will he fall and will anyone better replace him?
Labour MPs will panic either after the upcoming byelection or after local election results.
It won’t be the first time a PM has had to yield to a less than perfect replacement. Major? Brown? Truss?
Totally agree. I have also always felt him to be a deeply sinister and very unpleasant man. You have to wonder what knowledge Mandellson has to repeatedly get reappointed when for anyone else his first fall from grace would have been enough.
Clearly crimes have been committed and Starmer just take decisive action, something he never seems keen on doing. It shows Starmer in very poor light in replacing a well liked and competent ambassador with Mandellson, with his then known history let alone what is now coming to light. It will be interesting to see what Alistair Campbell,who admits to still being friends has to say now!
Having worked for a large, global bank and seen the kind of information its government relations teams were able to ascertain, I am afraid I don’t think the Mandelson story is one about a rogue actor in an otherwise honest system. You’ve all been given a glimpse into how high level lobbying works.
Mandelson isn’t the only person who needs investigating. Others do too. Not to mention a whole host of politicians of every party. The only party that I saw as unforthcoming/incorruptible were the Green parties at both national and European level.
This is important. Corporations pay politicians – either explicitly (and recorded) or implicitly (favours etc. and unrecorded). They do it for a reason… the hope to influence policy making and they want advice on how they might influence policy.
If you think anything else then you haven’t been paying attention.
Mandelson’s activity may be a particularly egregious example but I would suggest that any MP that takes a “consultancy role” is guilty of the same offence.
Agreed
This needs reform.
Thank you.
I worked in regulatory policy from 2007 – 16 and the autumn 2023 – spring 2024 and came across officials in London, Brussels, Washington and NYC leak to lobbyists and banksters, often in the hope of securing a gig.
I know a regulator married to a journalist turned bankster turned lobbyist. The latter acts for clients resisting crackdowns on social media platforms. The former is supposed to regulate them.
George Galloway made two interesting comments on Twitter
Firstly that while he hated Gordon Brown for the last 40 years he knew that he had a strong moral compass.
Secondly that the British Security Security Services are no fools and know whats going on
Make of both what you will
Much as I dislike George Galloway and much of what he stands for he’s totally right in both of these statements.
Ghislaine Maxwell is the daughter of Robert Maxwell who was, it is alleged, closely connected with Mossad, the Israeli secret service. See wikipedia for the allegations
The US supplies Israel with all the military intelligence it asks for. So what secrets could Mandelson have been passing on? Other than financial.
The Israeli lobby has influence in high places and, as Alan Duncan, found out, it is enough to veto ministerial appointments ( and one presumes to promote ). Knowledge of people’s personal lives can also be used to keep people quiet or compliant.
I tend to be cautious about conspiracy theories. ‘Cock up’ is more often the explanation than sweeping conspiracies. But I can see a plausible narrative here.
But you may wish to simply delete.
As we read the Epstein headlines, noticing who gets named and who is redacted (either by the Feds or the press), it is difficult to avoid noticing the role of Israel, Mossad, and the suggestions of blackmail and “kompromat” including mention of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, the “man with a plan” for Gaza.
Who knows where this will go, as millions of pages of dirty secrets are pored over, spiked, shredded or, maybe, miraculously, exposed to the light?
But it made me think of an earlier mention of Epstein, by one Jeremy Corbyn, and the faux moral outrage that followed about his pronunciation of a name (Epstein/Einstein?). It was the establishment version of the aluminium foil chaff that ww2 bombers used to unload to confuse enemy radar and it worked, he was destroyed by this malicious machine of lies.
Its easy to forget just how much things have changed since those days when “straining at gnats and swallowing camels” was considered perfectly normal behaviour in our press and politics.
Both the search url
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=fpas&q=corbyn+mispronounced+epstein%27s+name&ia=web
and the Times of Israel link
https://www.timesofisrael.com/jeremy-corbyn-mispronounces-jeffrey-epsteins-name-and-critics-have-a-field-day/
are worth refecting on, as we compare today with Nov 2019 (just before that General Election that gave lying corrupt Johnson his majority), finished off Corbyn and gave Starmer the Labour Party, and later the whole country.
Epstein is dead, Netanyahu is still on trial for corruption, Mandelson fills the headlines, and the Andrew formerly known as Prince, crawls around on the carpet, over young girls of who knows what age. MacSweeney is still invisible, and Starmer is still kowtowing to any autocrat who will shake hand with him in front of a camera.
What a world!
Roll on the politics of care. It’s needed more than ever.
Thanks.
In a world where innocents are subjected to ‘extraordinary rendition’ to cough up the truth, the double standards here to me at least are quite sickening. So no one can get to the truth eh? I doubt it, more like they don’t want to get to the truth because I reckon it could be quite scandalous and even worse than you think.
I think what has been reified here concerning Mandelson is his untouchable status in the parliamentary Labour party where he obviously carries a lot of weight. I think he is feared too. His is a form of pleonexia for sure. His moral compass has gone and he thinks politics is about consensus rather than fighting the good fight (except when of course his own back is up against the wall). Like many Labour Third Way missionaries, he mistakenly thinks that going with the flow of money-power is high intellectual intelligence. The access to wealth this affords these dreamers helps them to discard any foibles, guilt or doubts.
And then there is this other side to Mandelson which I think is really dangerous. I see a man who may have fought low to get high, who may have suffered a lack of credibility or suffered because of his sexuality and lack of up front people skills or something, but who harbours a lot of resentment towards others, who constantly carries hurt around with him. People like that then get the chance to exorcise their pain in and on the public realm with dire consequences. So to me we don’t need the Mandelson’s of this world. Good riddance.
Beyond Mandelson, we have actually been given a small aperture into a world here that is clearly surreal: a world where large sums of money are moved around for certain individuals by banks and middlemen at more than favourable rates to pursue dreams whilst many of us will have more modest dreams thwarted (such as a decent job, pension or healthcare). This saga has been vignette into how we are really ruled, if many of us but realised it. And it’s troubling.
Thank you, PSR.
They are only wealthy because they thwart our dreams. They are only powerful because they misinform and divide us.
Are there still rooms available in the Tower of London?
The House of Lords is now where these people end up, and he’s already there!
‘We’ – here and in the wider political discourse on BBC are surely not seeing the fundamental flaw in the system which has allowed Mandelson his multiple comebacks. The Starmer faction took over Labour because they could perfectly legally get hundreds of thousands from dark money vested interests and – along with Reform and Tories – don’t need members subscriptions when they can get £12 million in a single donation from someone based in Thailand.
Unless the constitution is reformed to outlaw corruption at the top – so that MP’s and ministers cannot received ‘gifts’, ‘donations’, 2nd ‘jobs’, bribes for honours, revolving doors – the Mandelsons and Starmers and the rest will continue to make politics anathema to the ordinary people – ‘they are all in it for themselves’
The establishment will try to make even this existential crisis only about tweaking the rules about withdrawing peerages, improving security checks etc – anything to avoid a root and branch cleaning the stables from top to bottom – so that even PSR might feel able to vote.
Ha Ha – love it! Fingers crossed!
Regarding Mandelson’s relations with Epstein, the following newsletter is eye-opening, if all the connections made are true. The links between the Far Right, billionaires, and a global sex trafficking ring are all right out of a QAnon conspiracy, except this is backed up by potential real evidence.
https://www.garbageday.email/p/here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet
Some of the worst people in our modern culture are connected to Epstein. Musk, Thiel, Bannon. Farage is connected to him through Bannon. Our government could use this information to destroy Farage, but who knows who they are protecting? Mandelson was in their ranks, and the Royal Family probably has something to say in the matter. The Epstein files could rid us of the Far Right in its current form and many bad actors in the Billionaire class. If only someone could get their act together and use them.
Thank you, Tom.
I have worked with oligarchs and their firms and would like to relay an observation.
What we have seen with the debauched lifestyle of that deracinated elite is not even the tip of the iceberg. An ecosystem exists to manage their fortunes and support their activities. Think of the British social season on a global scale and the type of events organised around the world.
Think, too, of the overconsumption and planet frying use of planes, especially private jets*.
This planet can’t afford the wealthy. Every billionaire is a policy failure. Tax them, and tax them heavily. Regulate them out of existence.
What’s that I hear about innovation, emigration etc? Well, what about them. Most of these people are living off the work undertaken a generation or more ago. They inherited wealth. The likes of Gates, Bezos and Musk started on third base and leveraged connections.
Speaking of private jets, @ Richard, could you, please, ask Prem to ask a question about the use of RAF Northolt’s private jet terminal for various forms of trafficking. RAF Marham, for Sandringham, too. Thank you.
Every tech company is living off technology developed by the public sector in the last century. Their only innovation in the past 20 years has been the stock buyback. Billionaires have just come along and hoovered up all the growth previous generations created, and our political elite, Labour, Tories, Reform, are just elbowing each other aside for a seat at the billionaire table.
Thank you, Richard.
Last September, Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, implied that his former colleagues had advised Starmer against the appointment, but Starmer did not listen.
Any investigation must include the role of Morgan McSweeney and the zionist donors to Starmer. Mandelson and Sweeney go back to the early 2000s, not long after McSweeney and his wife returned from a kibbutz.
Jewish community groups organise in Whitehall and in the offices of city councils, acting as Israel’s eyes and ears. This may make some people uncomfortable, but we have got to get past this reticence.
All noted.
Thank you, Richard.
May I add that the EU should investigate Mandelson, too, and, separately, investigate other commissioners, officials, MEPs and MEP staff for similar conduct.
I haven’t forgotten Jose Manuel Barroso Goldman Sachs soon after his presidency and Danish officials going to the same firm after Denmark’s presidency.
As I type, from the tropics, I recall European banking officials slagging off Africans for corruption and treating catering staff of African origin in Brussels in a beastly manner.
Reported in the Guardian today, from an interview with Mandelson by Katy Balls:
‘Asked if he had a lapse of judgment when it came to rich people, he replies:
‘”That is a bit of an occupational hazard for a leading politician or a European commissioner, as I was. I don’t think I am drawn towards rich people so much as rich people have big personalities, a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience to share. I hoover that up, but not because they’re wealthy. It’s because of what they do and what they’ve learnt and the responsibilities they’ve exercised, not the size of their bank accounts.”‘
In other words, this ‘leading politician’ appears (still!) to believe that wealth correlates with knowledge, experience and responsibility, and makes explicit the assumption that attending to the lobbying of the wealthy takes priority over the interests of one’s constituents or one’s country.
Agreed
Mandelson’s lack of awareness is/was staggering.
W S Gilbert has a lot to say in Iolanthe about those in the House of Lords, and indeed about politicians in general – worth looking up if need of amusement! He wrote it in 1882 I think, so little has changed.
Rather earlier this quote by John Heywood (in 1546) could apply to many politicians, both MPs and House of Lords – “There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.”
Much to agree with
In this short (4 mins) video Chris Daw KC explains why Mandelson could be charged with Misconduct in Public Office rather than under the Official Secrets Act or bribery/corruption legislation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srjdAiVp5MY
Thanks
I admit to being very surprised.
And while we’re on the subject of money being passed around has anyone read anything about how Michelle Mone and husband are getting on? Are they standing on a street corner begging yet ? If not why not? Please don’t forget them.