Everybody has been waiting to see what scandalous revelations might appear in the latest tranche of government papers relating to Lord Peter Mandelson’s appointment as UK ambassador to Washington, but so far the papers have provided only thin gruel.
The more interesting story is how the British Government and its security apparatus managed either to ignore or not notice damning information about Mandelson’s relations with the paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, which had long been on the public record.
Did those supposedly expert security types vetting Mandelson for the job ask him about disclosures concerning his relationship with Epstein appearing in Private Eye in 2009, a Channel Four Dispatches documentary about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein in 2019, and in the Financial Times in 2023, citing a JP Morgan report?
So much is already known about Mandelson, his relationship with Epstein and the circumstances of his appointment that there may be little new left to be revealed.
Many references in the papers, which are only beginning to be examined at the time of writing, are a little embarrassing, but in most cases, this is only in retrospect. For instance, in a glad-handing letter to the then foreign secretary David Lammy in November 2024, Mandelson says: “If you were minded to appoint me, I would make sure you never regret it.” This sounds ironic – given what subsequently happened – but it is the sort of polite throw-away remark common enough in thank you letters. There is no smoking gun here.
