Analysis: Mandelson Documents Leave Keir Starmer’s Reputation In Tatters

Keir Starmer was given every excuse he needed not to make Peter Mandelson the UK’s ambassador to Washington, but did it anyway.

There are few fresh revelations contained within the 137 pages of documents released by the government about Mandelson’s appointment.

The biggest one – that the disgraced peer wanted a pay-off of more than half a million pounds for a job that he was sacked from – simply confirms what we already knew about his character.

In the end, he received £75,000 – a third of which was tax free.

However, it is the confirmation of what the prime minister was told by his own civil servants before appointing him which is most damning of all.

The Cabinet Office due diligence report presented to the PM on December 11, 2024, shortly before Mandelson’s appointment, is clear about the extent of his relationship with the convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.

It shows that a report commissioned by JP Morgan in 2019 found that Epstein “appeared to maintain a particularly close relationship” with Mandelson and the now-equally disgraced Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Most shockingly, that report found that Epstein and Mandelson relationship continued between 2009 and 2011, after the billionaire financier’s conviction for procuring an underage girl in 2008.

Mandelson also stayed at Epstein’s house in New York when he was still in jail.

In addition, Mandelson went on to become a “founding citizen” of an ocean conservation group funded by Epstein and founded by his close associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.

The document says that Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein represented a “general reputational risk” for the government.

What more evidence did the PM need that he should give Mandelson a very wide berth?

However, on the advice of his chief of staff, Mandelson ally Morgan McSweeney, Starmer opted to ignore this warning and appoint him anyway.

The political decision was taken that Mandelson’s ability to curry favour with Donald Trump was more important than standing with Epstein’s victims.

McSweeney ultimately paid for that calculation with his job.

For now at least, Starmer remains in place. But his reputation as a cautious politician who, for all his faults, at least does things by the book, is in tatters.

By no means coincidentally, the Mandelson documents were not released until after prime minister’s questions, meaning Starmer could not be personally grilled about their contents.

Instead, chief secretary to the PM Darren Jones was sent out to face the music.

He claimed that the “due diligence process fell short of what is required”, which is undoubtedly true.

It is also the case that Mandelson was less than forthcoming about his links to Epstein when personally asked about them by the prime minister.

Nevertheless, this does not change the fact that the details which were already in the public domain should have been sufficient to bar him from the plum diplomatic role.

Jones told MPs that Epstein “was a despicable criminal who committed the most horrifying and disgusting crime that destroyed the lives of countless women and girls”.

And yet, knowing this, Starmer still opted to make his friend Mandelson the UK’s ambassador to Washington.

It is a decision which should haunt him for the remainder of his time in office, and beyond.