There’s a horrible irony to the Epstein scandal. It is a story factory-made for populism: the rich and powerful cavorting on private jets with a paedophile financier; JP Morgan organising back room deals on the top floor of Manhattan skyscrapers; unproven whispers about Mossad and blackmail. And yet, the very man who was born to ride the populist wave is himself implicated.
The scandal has forced some of Trump’s base to see him as a phony populist. He has spent years attacking the elite only to be named in the most elite contact book there is. Congressional Democrats, and some Republicans, are publishing files related to his case.
This is how, in a very strange way, we know that the messages to Epstein from Trump and Peter Mandelson are only 20 pages apart in the infamous “birthday book”. Both are now implicated in the most symbolically charged criminal saga of the 21st century. But the bar for scandal is much higher in Washington than in Westminster. While Trump wades through what would cripple any other politician, calls for Mandelson’s head are rising in Westminster’s corridors.
Mandelson seems to have had one eye on Westminster ever since he arrived in February. He was, after all, a political appointee, known for his close relationship to the No 10 Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney. Some embassy staff have bristled at this unique background. Here was a Westminster bigwig, as they saw it, leapfrogging other career diplomats to the most enviable posting in the foreign service. The accusation has been bandied around that the new boss is more enthralled by Westminster than the hundreds of staff working at the palatial complex up Massachusetts Avenue.
Mandelson’s predecessor, Karen Pierce, looms over this entire scandal. The old ambassador was much-loved by the Maga ranks. She was seen as tactful, direct and frank. She organised the New York meeting between Starmer and Trump just after the election. Many Maga figures in Washington could not understand why Starmer would replace her with someone from the very political class they reviled. Mandelson, to them, was the great globalist. As one crudely put it to me: “I’d rather have a conservative hag than a liberal fag.”
They noted the strangeness of sending a former EU trade commissioner into the populist bearpit. Many saw an anachronism. One Washington old hand scathingly said that now was not the time “for socialites. If he wanted to be a socialite he should have been here thirty years ago. They should’ve appointed a professional.”
There’s a question here about Starmer’s judgement and what he values in his top team. Mandelson’s appointment showed No 10 wanted continuity with the past. They chose the old ways over the new. Sue Gray’s hiring showed a similar thought process: a tendency to think people will act differently to how they have always acted before. Labour knew that Mandelson stayed friends with Epstein after his conviction before they sent him to Washington. It was a risk they decided to take, a gamble they seem to have lost.
The question now is whether Mandelson will be recalled to London. The White House views the Epstein story as a hoax, a Democratic ploy to besmirch their dear leader. No 10 won’t want to be seen to believe the Epstein story by firing Mandelson because that would implicitly mean Trump was at fault.
There are more immediate reasons for why he might stay in the short term. Mandelson may be saved by Trump’s state visit next week, where he is scheduled to attend the state banquet. Firing your ambassador on the eve of a diplomatic carnival would distract from anything which came out of the visit. Then there is the technology deal which is currently being hashed out between London and Washington. This has been a pet project for Mandelson. He has been closely involved in the negotiations, making use of his contacts in Silicon Valley. Labour is touting the deal as a turning point in their fight for growth. “It would be a shame [if he went], because he’s genuinely doing a very good job,” one Labour MP told me.
But these considerations look meagre in comparison to the accusation that Starmer is protecting someone once so close to Epstein. And the newspapers are full of new revelations. He lobbied Tony Blair to meet the financier in 2002, according to the Times. The Sun published an email Mandelson sent to Epstein after his conviction in which he wrote: “Your friends stay with you and love you”. Bloomberg obtained emails in which Epstein asked Mandelson whether he could contact a Florida governor at the time to help arrange a pardon. What if Democrats call for Mandelson to testify in Congress?
Westminster careers end when the pressure becomes too much, and momentum for Mandelson to go is growing. The walls are closing in. Mandelson has already quit the national stage twice. His third exit may come very soon.
[See also: The assassination of Charlie Kirk]
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