Peter Mandelson has a strong case to be one of the most influential people in British politics of the past 30 years: the architect of New Labour, the first modern “spin doctor”, three times a Cabinet minister and then the country’s leading diplomat as ambassador to the USA.
Mandelson was never prime minister himself – he never had the warmth or the connection with voters to take centre stage. But it is arguable that two Prime Ministers – Sir Tony Blair and Sir Keir Starmer – might never have reached No 10 without his help, and he helped protect another – Gordon Brown – by stepping in to act as his deputy when his authority was most threatened. Over his career, he has wielded more power than many of those who did reach the highest office.
He thought his sacking from the US ambassadorial role in September last year would be just another bump in the road. After all, he had resigned in disgrace twice before and always managed to make a comeback. His friendships with rich socialites, including Jeffrey Epstein, were no secret and had provided no impediment to his relentless ambition.
As recently as last month, he was sitting down for glossy magazine interviews in which he could dismiss the Epstein scandal as “bad luck”. He was writing columns full of advice for Starmer, confident that his experience of dealing with Donald Trump would make him an important voice in the years ahead.
Look at Mandelson now. Not just sacked but arrested, as part of a police investigation into allegations of misconduct in public office based on the information contained in the latest batch of Epstein files released a few weeks ago.
His future will now be decided by the criminal justice system. But it is more obvious than ever that politically, there is no way back for the “prince of darkness”.
Starmer has acknowledged that appointing Mandelson to be his ambassador to Washington was a gamble. But he cannot have conceived that it would go so badly wrong.
When the true extent of the ties between Mandelson and Epstein became known through the publication of thousands of emails to and from the late sex offender, it came close to toppling the Prime Minister altogether.
Many MPs in private, and a few in public, concluded that this error of judgement was the last straw for their support for Starmer. Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader who is facing a bruising defeat in May’s Holyrood elections, became the most senior figure in the party to call for a new leader.
The Prime Minister, of course, survived. His whole Cabinet, plus other Labour power-brokers including deputy leader Lucy Powell and her predecessor Angela Rayner, backed him to stay. He is now expected to be safe at least until the local elections.
It is not likely that the arrest of Mandelson will have changed MPs’ minds about Starmer. They knew that keeping him in place would mean enduring more embarrassing headlines about the former ambassador as the police investigation played out.
But they will have hoped that the probe would have concluded as quickly as possible – the arrest suggests that it may now be drawn out, keeping the Mandelson saga front of mind for voters and making it harder for Labour to move on to talking about the issues that matter most to voters, on which Government insiders fervently believe they have a good story to tell.
For Starmer, things are looking worryingly similar to the demise of Boris Johnson. The Tory prime minister tried again and again to get past “Partygate” and other questions about his own personal conduct, dismissing them as tittle-tattle which would only distract from more important policy concerns. But the drip-drip of new revelations kept diverting Johnson from his course and eventually proved too much for Conservative backbenchers – and for Cabinet ministers. It took six months, but they acted.
One consequence of Mandelson’s arrest is likely to be delaying the full release of all the papers relating to his appointment as ambassador, which must be published eventually as the result of a Commons vote. The police have asked the Government to hold back some of the files until after their own investigation is over.
That poses two problems for Starmer: first, the risk of a similar stream of information to that which brought down Johnson; second, he is restricted from making public a set of emails which he believes prove he did not know the full details of Mandelson’s ties with Epstein when he sent him to Washington.
The Prime Minister desperately wants to get away from chatter about this subject. That looks increasingly unrealistic. And for as long as Labour MPs are plagued with Mandelson headlines, they will be less forgiving to Starmer in the event of other setbacks.
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