The party veteran’s exit in the wake of the Epstein revelations looks like the final stop of a rollercoaster career
Peter Mandelson has an extraordinary talent for securing jobs at the top of the government, but an even more extraordinary one for leaving them in a blaze of controversy.
When he was startlingly reappointed to the cabinet by his former nemesis Gordon Brown in 2008, he overheard a conversation between two senior civil servants in his new business department.
Brian Bender, who was planning his retirement the following spring, told Mandelson’s new principal private secretary, Richard Abel: “Your job is to make sure I go before Peter does.”
Mandelson, who started his career in Labour politics as a councillor in south London in 1979, has now resigned or been sacked from top-level political jobs three times, in three different decades, having served three different prime ministers.
