Emma Barnett Slams Government Boys Club Amid Mandelson Files

BBC presenter Emma Barnett tore into the government’s “boys’ club” culture in a tense interview with a Labour minister over the Peter Mandelson files.

The government has just released the first tranche of documents related to the vetting of the former Labour peer before he was appointed as the UK’s ambassador to Washington.

The files show Keir Starmer’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell warned about the reputational risk of hiring Mandelson over his close friendship with the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Powell also noted the appointment was “weirdly rushed”, while officials told The Times that the security adviser privately said that “Peter is always a disaster and we always end up firing him”.

Former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office Sir Philip Barton raised concerns about the appointment, too.

Formal advice to the prime minister pointed out that Mandelson remained friends with Epstein until at least 2014, long after his conviction of soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2009.

Starmer still hired Mandelson in December 2024 though he has since claimed the peer lied to him.

On BBC Radio 4′s Today programme, Barnett asked cabinet minister Nick Thomas-Symonds why Powell thought this appointment “weirdly rushed” and “unusual”.

The paymaster general said: “Obviously this was, by its nature, an unusual appointment.

“It was a political appointment, they’re not unheard of, they do happen.”

He added “there are questions that need to be asked” about the speed of the appointment and the security vetting.

But Barnett said the UK has a right to understand how sound Starmer’s judgement is, considering he still hired Mandelson despite warnings of “reputational risk”.

“He ignored not only Jonathan Powell, but Sir Philip Barton,” she said.

“Why did he ignore top individuals and rush through a weirdly unusual process to put Lord Mandelson as our man in Washington?”

The minister said Starmer had asked the ex-ambassador his own questions but that document is not yet in the public domain.

That item will be released at a later date, when the police probe into Mandelson concludes.

Barnett pressed: “Do you accept the reputational damage this has done to Sir Keir Starmer?”

She continued: “The suffering of women was ignored. The abuse of underage girls was not as a barrier to friendship to Lord Mandelson.

“And nor was that seen as a problem by all the men advising the prime minister. You want to talk about boys’ clubs, you want to talk about women?”

Barnett pointed out that chief secretary to the prime minister, Darren Jones, had extended his sympathies to Epstein’s victims during his statement to the Commons – but she added: “It’s too little, too late isn’t it?”

Thomas-Symonds said: “I acknowledge entirely, not just in politics, in society, in business, issues – you’re right, men in power abusing their position.

“I’m not running away from that, that’s something we need to tackle.”

But he claimed Starmer has given an “absolute priority” across his career to halve violence against women and girls.

“Two things can be true,” she insisted, noting that the minister had still avoided questions over what this means for Starmer’s reputation.

The presenter said: “He’s a man of legal training, why wasn’t the sceptical, analytical part of his brain switched on enough, as prime minister, to say, ‘no, there must be someone better’?”

Thomas-Symonds insisted Starmer has asked questions to Mandelson in private and regrets that appointment.

Mandelson denies all allegations of wrongdoing, including alleged misconduct in public office.