After days of deflection, deception and lies, we are now entering the end-game of the Mandelson/Epstein saga. Downing Street’s attempts to claim it was unaware of the full, sordid nature of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein have collapsed. And all that remains to be resolved is who pays the price for the shameful attempt to try to hide the truth from parliament and the British people.
The full sorry sequence of events has been established. On Monday, the Bloomberg news agency presented Mandelson with a detailed 2,000-word memo outlining emails between him and Epstein, and asked for a response. On Tuesday, the Foreign Office became aware of the memo, and passed a copy on to Keir Starmer’s advisers, including his most senior aide Morgan McSweeney. The Foreign Office also opened a propriety and ethics investigation into Mandelson.
On Tuesday evening, Mandelson conducted an interview with The Sun newspaper in which he admitted to having maintained a close social relationship with Epstein even after he had been convicted of having sex with a minor. He also stated further embarrassing details of the relationship were due to be published.
Yet despite all this, Starmer stood up in the House of Commons at Wednesday lunchtime, and told MPs: ‘The ambassador has repeatedly expressed his deep regret for his association with Epstein, and he is right to do so. I have confidence in him, and he is playing an important role in the UK-US relationship.’
What he didn’t tell the House was that the day before No 10 had received evidence Peter Mandelson had literally expressed his love for Epstein, even after he had been convicted of being a paedophile. He didn’t tell the House that at that very moment the Foreign Office was conducting an investigation into Mandelson’s conduct. And he didn’t tell the House that even though he was expressing confidence in his ambassador, his most senior adviser was in possession of the full facts about the true nature of his relationship with Epstein, the very facts that would be later used to justify his sacking.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves No 10 with his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney
So Starmer clearly misled the House of Commons, and the country. The only question is whether he did so knowingly, or inadvertently. There are now only three explanations for Starmer’s deception. The first is that when he stood up in the Commons, he knew the full truth about Mandelson and that he was under investigation, and he simply lied.
The second explanation is that he asked McSweeney what the situation was regarding Mandelson, McSweeney lied, and Starmer unwittingly regurgitated those lies to the House. The third explanation is that Starmer simply didn’t want to confront the truth about Mandelson, didn’t bother to ask anyone about what was going on, and misled the House via the sin of self-serving omission.
We have some clues over which explanation is the most accurate. According to sources I and my colleague Glen Owen spoke to for The Mail on Sunday, Starmer was last week embroiled in a furious row with McSweeney, in which he bellowed: ‘You are supposed to protect me from things like this!’
We were also told that at the time of Mandelson’s vetting for the role of Washington ambassador, a security assessment of the risks associated with his appointment was ‘watered down’ before being presented to the Prime Minister. ‘It was deemed politically inconvenient to present the original,’ we were told.
But whatever the truth, the choice facing Starmer is now clear: He either has to ask for McSweeney’s resignation. Or he has to resign himself.
There is no escape. Before he was elected, Starmer claimed, ‘To change Britain, we must change ourselves – we need to clean up politics.’ He would, he pledged, ‘restore standards in public life with a total crackdown on cronyism’.
Which leaves Sir Keir confronted with the acid test of that pious rhetoric. Either he misled the Commons in an attempt to defend his crony Mandelson. Or he was misled by his crony McSweeney, who was himself trying to defend his crony Mandelson. Or neither man bothered to ask the questions they were obliged to ask, and both effectively misled the Commons to protect Peter Mandelson. Which represents the worst example of cronyism of all.The voters are sick to death of the political hypocrisy, degeneracy and venality exposed by the Mandelson Affair. Someone has to be held to account. And if Keir Starmer doesn’t choose who, the British people will make that choice for him.
