Lord Mandelson could have ‘lost the plot’ because he was ‘in love’ with Jeffrey Epstein, a former minister has claimed.
Shaun Woodward, who was Northern Ireland Secretary under Gordon Brown, made the startling suggestion as he admitted it was ‘hard to explain’ the actions of his long-term friend.
An astonishing trove of millions of emails have cast further light on the close relations between Lord Mandelson and the paedophile financier.
They show the pair sharing sexual jokes, with the peer quipping on election day in 2010 that he was hoping for a ‘hung parliament’ or a ‘well-hung young man’.
Lord Mandelson is also facing a police investigation into allegations he passed secret government information to Epstein at the height of the Credit Crunch crisis.
He has denied the huge tranche of evidence released by the US government on Friday shows he broke the law.
The New Labour architect is to step down from the Lords today, after Sir Keir threatened to pass legislation to kick him out. He will retain his title unless there is a change in the law, and has insisted his career in public life is not over.
Lord Mandelson could have ‘lost the plot’ because he was ‘in love’ with Jeffrey Epstein (pictured togeter), a former minister has claimed
Lord Mandelson told Jeffrey Epstein he was praying for a ‘well hung young man’ in a lewd email
In November 2009 the men seemed to be having a discussion about whether Lord Mandelson should try to oust Gordon Brown as PM when sex again cropped up
Mr Woodward told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme he was ‘absolutely astonished’ by the latest revelations.
‘It’s hard to explain how somebody so clever and smart did something which if (the emails) are right was anything but those things,’ he said.
Pressed why Lord Mandelson might have behaved in that way, Mr Woodward said: ‘I’m tempted to say he must have been in love with the guy and lost the plot.
‘It’s very hard to fathom how a senior Cabinet minister would have shared – if this is right and if these emails are bona fide – such information.’
Mr Woodward said that in many ways Lord Mandelson was a ‘disciplined focused person’.
But he said the emails did not show ‘the same discipline that he would have imagined or expected of other senior Cabinet colleagues’.
‘It’s like he was completely distracted when it related to matters concerning Jeffrey Epstein,’ he added.
Mr Woodward suggested Lord Mandelson’s reputation as a political Svengali had become overblown due to his ‘magnetism’, and he had started to believe the hype.
‘He probably did think he can walk on water, and it turn out that actually you can’t walk on water,’ he added.
Mr Woodward told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme he was ‘absolutely astonished’ by the latest revelations
