Why has Mandy been given such an easy ride in the media?

UK prime minister Keir Starmer is far from the only one who stuck by Peter Mandelson long after the scandal surrounding him became impossible to ignore. In the past few weeks, despite new evidence of Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein being made public, the BBC continued to offer him a platform. And still today, even as the extent of Mandelson’s alleged corruption, betrayal of trust and potentially criminal activity is made clear, it seems that the commentariat is prepared to come to his defence in sympathetic tweets, interviews and newspaper columns.

Starmer appointed Mandelson British ambassador to the US in 2024, despite knowing that the architect of New Labour had twice been forced to resign in disgrace from cabinet posts and had maintained a close association with Epstein. It took until September last year for Starmer to finally give him the boot, after emails were published showing Mandelson urging Epstein to ‘fight for early release’ from jail, following his conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

But while Starmer may have finally decided Mandelson was no longer fit for public life, the BBC took a different stance. Even after we had been treated to creepy photos of him in a bathrobe, casually chatting to his ‘best pal’ Epstein, Mandelson continued to be offered a cosy platform on the BBC. Just three weeks ago, on 11 January, he appeared on the BBC’s flagship Sunday morning politics show, where he was interviewed by presenter Laura Kuenssberg. Mandelson was given over half an hour to offer his take on the Trump administration, Greenland, Ukraine and the British government.

It was only in the final 10 minutes of the interview that Mandelson was asked about his relationship with Epstein. Even then, Kuenssberg threw him softball questions. This gave him a chance to offer a perfunctory apology to ‘the victims’, before giving his excuses. He told a credulous Kuenssberg that because he is gay, ‘he was kept separate from the sexual side of Epstein’s life’. Worse still, Mandelson – always the spin doctor – was able to present himself as a victim. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as a maelstrom of sex and scandal happened all around him.

This interview was no one-off. Just days later, Mandelson was at Broadcasting House again, this time being interviewed by Sarah Montague for Radio 4’s World at One. Once again, Mandelson got to present himself as an elder statesman turned commentator on global events, with the promise of moral rehabilitation via apologies and disclaimers. We have to ask why. Why did BBC producers and presenters think Mandelson worthy of this reprieve?

But the media’s special treatment of Mandelson does not stop at the BBC. Even now, when we know that the real scandal in the relationship between Mandelson and Epstein was not sex but money, knowledge and power, he is being fawned over by some commentators. This week, the former Conservative MP turned Times columnist, Matthew Parris, has been gushing over Mandelson, describing him as ‘a man of wisdom and judgement in all but the conduct of his personal affairs’. ‘Within his party he has been a seminal influence for good’, Parris continues, ‘on the right side of every important argument in the politics of the left’.

Labour’s one-time spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, has been defending him as ‘talented’. ‘There’s no doubt. If you push to one side the reasons for his resignations, he was an effective cabinet minister,’ says Campbell on the latest edition of his Rest is Politics podcast. Despite Mandelson being implicated in the biggest scandal to hit the British government in decades – allegedly engaged in corruption that makes ‘partygate’ seem like the tea party it really was – neither Campbell nor Parris can summon up the words to wholeheartedly condemn him.

There’s a reason for this treatment of Mandelson. His role in orchestrating New Labour’s success under Tony Blair means that, even today, he is given a free pass by establishment centrists. They either refuse to believe he has done anything terribly wrong, or think that the sleaze, alleged corruption and seeming acts of treachery were a price worth paying for getting their men into power.

The Mandelson affair raises questions not just about the prime minister’s judgement but about Britain’s entire political and media class. Far too many decades-old stalwarts of the Westminster-media pipeline are implicated in defending Mandelson long after his failings were manifest. Either they have grown so used to shouting ‘scandal’ over every cake crumb and undeclared payment, that they can no longer spot the real thing. Or they so firmly believe in the moral rightness of the centrist, technocratic political project that they see corruption as a price worth paying. In either case, it’s not just Mandelson, Starmer and the Labour government that Britain needs to be shot of, but their sympathisers and hangers-on in the media, too.