{"id":85772,"date":"2025-09-10T07:41:45","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T06:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=85772"},"modified":"2025-09-10T07:41:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T06:41:45","slug":"time-up-for-mandelson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/09\/10\/time-up-for-mandelson\/","title":{"rendered":"Time up for Mandelson?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Telegraph reports<\/a> this morning:<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Epstein brokered a deal with Lord Mandelson over the sale of a UK taxpayer-owned banking business after he had been convicted of child sex offences, emails have revealed.<\/p>\n

The \u00a31bn deal was negotiated while\u00a0Lord Mandelson\u00a0was Business Secretary and only months after\u00a0Epstein\u00a0had been released from prison.<\/p>\n

Sempra Commodities, a joint venture between the taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Sempra Energy, was sold to JP Morgan in a deal on which Epstein gave advice to both Lord Mandelson and to Jes Staley, a senior executive with JP Morgan who has since been banned from the City over his relationship with the disgraced financier.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Three things come to mind.<\/p>\n

Firstly, the Telegraph could be wrong. It has, of course, happened before, and there could be another interpretation to place on all this.<\/p>\n

Secondly, if they are right, then the ethical implications of this do, politely, stink to high heaven. Anyone with the slightest sense should have been steering well clear of Jeffrey Epstein at this time, as Andrew York (or Windsor, or whatever he calls himself in the silly games that royals play) has discovered to his cost.<\/p>\n

Third, Mandelson had already proved over a number of years, as the Telegraph documents, that he had no sense when it came to Epstein. They clearly were close and over an extended period.<\/p>\n

So, what are the implications?<\/p>\n

Epstein's victims clearly want Mandelson out of the British Embassy in the USA, and I have to say, rightly so. A man who has such poor judgment has no right to hold the office that he has, even if there is no evidence that he, personally, did anything wrong.<\/p>\n

Perhaps as significantly, in political rather than ethical terms, are the obvious questions that this poses about Keir Starmer's judgement. Presumably, the security briefing prepared before Mandelson's appointment would have highlighted all these issues, because if it did not, British security would be rather pointless. Let's presume for a moment that MI5 has not reached that point, and that Starmer was aware of all the risks of appointing someone as ambassador in Washington despite his past history with Epstein. What, then, does that say about Starmer?<\/p>\n

There is no good spin that anyone in Labour can create out of this situation, and the Telegraph may well be right to go for its second Labour scalp in a very short period of time by pursuing this issue. Mandelson should not be where he is. But then, nor should Starmer be so either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Telegraph reports this morning: Jeffrey Epstein brokered a deal with Lord Mandelson over the sale of a UK taxpayer-owned banking business after he
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