The path for Peter Mandelson’s disastrous appointment as Britain’s ambassador to Washington was set even before Keir Starmer became Britain’s prime minister.
The affair has formed the backdrop to the UK’s local elections which could determine the prime minister’s fate. As millions of voters went to the polls on Thursday, the revelations about Mandelson’s past friendship with Jeffrey Epstein have severely damaged Starmer’s administration.
The scandal has cost him his US ambassador, chief of staff, director of communications, head of the Foreign Office and, some MPs believe, his moral authority.
“We can’t escape it,” lamented one Labour MP. “We look like we’re crawling out of a hole, only to keep falling back into it.”
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Starmer had started the process that ultimately led to Mandelson’s appointment before July 2024. “It was communicated to the civil service before the election that Keir wanted this to be a political appointment,” said one Number 10 insider.
The idea was that someone with a hotline to Number 10 – a seasoned politician like Mandelson – should go to Washington, rather than the previous Conservative government’s choice of Tim Barrow, a career diplomat.
The idea of Mandelson as ambassador was first promoted by Mandelson himself, as the former New Labour grandee sought one final high-profile public role.
Starmer delayed his final choice until the US presidential election in November 2024 to see who won. Former Labour foreign secretary David Miliband was seen in Number 10 as the front-runner had Kamala Harris emerged victorious, but the head of an international humanitarian body was deemed to be an unlikely fit with Donald Trump.
“When it was Trump it was clear that it was going to be a bear pit,” the Downing Street insider said. “Peter Mandelson was seen as the best person to go into the bear pit.”
Kim Darroch, Britain’s former ambassador to Washington, said the choice seemed sensible at the time. “With Trump in the White House, having an ambassador who could pick up the phone to the PM – rather than send a telegram that would filter through the system – was a good idea.”
As a former EU trade commissioner, Mandelson seemed well placed to help forge a US trade deal.
Starmer was given a shortlist of three candidates, according to several people familiar with the matter. Alongside Mandelson was George Osborne, a Tory former chancellor whose public spending cuts made him a hate figure for Labour members.
The third, bizarrely, was Bear Grylls, an adventure-loving TV star. He had worked with Mark Burnett, the producer behind Trump’s show The Apprentice who is now Washington’s “special envoy to the UK”.
Earlier that year, Grylls had controversially assisted in the baptism of Russell Brand, the comedian who has since been charged with sexual offences, which he denies.
One government figure said the presentation of a favoured candidate alongside two improbable alternatives was a classic Whitehall tactic deployed by officials to nudge ministers towards a particular decision while creating the illusion of choice.
Downing Street officials said that “due diligence” was carried out on both Mandelson and Osborne but the prime minister did not interview either of them. “It’s odd,” admitted one official.
There were only a few dissident voices. David Cameron – the former Tory prime minister, and a recent foreign secretary – told friends that replacing the previous ambassador, Karen Pierce, was a misstep. He had seen over dinner at Mar-a-Lago that Trump “really respected” her.
But on the night before the appointment, Keir Starmer wrote to Mandelson saying he would be “brilliant”.
“It’s ironic, really, because Keir didn’t even like Mandelson,” said one long-time ally of the prime minister.
While Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, took advice from Mandelson through years of opposition, the Labour leader only met him a few times in that period, according to allies.
Yet the warning signs about Mandelson’s friendships and business dealings were there in black and white for those who cared to look.
The Financial Times had revealed in June 2023 that Mandelson, then the UK business secretary, had stayed at the New York mansion of Epstein in 2009 while the financier was in jail for soliciting prostitution from a 14-year-old.
In January 2024 Starmer was asked if he felt Mandelson had any questions to answer about being a guest of a jailed paedophile. “I don’t know any more than you do,” he replied.
Due diligence presented to Starmer in November 2024 set out concerns, including the Epstein friendship and Mandelson’s Chinese business links.
One Labour figure said: “There was a collective failure of elite political thinking in the UK about this; too many of us looked around and said, if everyone else thinks he’s acceptable then he must be.”
Behind the scenes, the process hit a snag. An unknown security official ticked two red boxes to “fail” Mandelson’s appointment.
The UK foreign office gave vetting approval regardless, without Starmer’s knowledge. This problem would blow up spectacularly in April 2026, long after Mandelson’s sacking.
All of this was yet to come. Mandelson gave an arch interview to the Financial Times before flying to Washington. Asked about Epstein, he snapped: “It’s an FT obsession and frankly you can all fuck off.”
In post, the New Labour stalwart took to Washington with ease, but on September 8th, 2025, the US House oversight committee published Epstein’s 50th “birthday book” with personal notes including Mandelson calling the paedophile his “best pal”.
Starmer initially said he had “confidence” in Mandelson. But political opponents went for the jugular at prime minister’s questions (PMQs).
One person working in Number 10 at the time said Starmer was briefed before the session and was “pissed off” about the growing scandal. “But that session of PMQs was awful, the MPs were silent behind him, the line just wasn’t working at all.”
Bloomberg published new leaked emails in which Mandelson sent Epstein supportive messages even as he faced jail for sex offences. Starmer finally decided to act: the ambassador was sacked at 5.40am on September 11th in Washington in a phone call from Olly Robbins, head of the UK foreign office.
Despite uproar from opposition parties and many Labour MPs, Number 10 believed that it had closed down the scandal. But that week, it emerged that Mandelson’s husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, had received money from Epstein in 2009 and 2010. A person close to Mandelson described the allegation as “inconceivable” and denied that Mandelson had ever received money from Epstein, either directly or via his husband.
Downing Street had no idea about the fresh furore which would land four months later with the publication of three million Epstein files by the US department of justice.
The files dropped on January 30th. Within minutes, messages emerged suggesting Epstein had wired secret payments of thousands of dollars to da Silva when Mandelson was business secretary. The next day other documents came to light showing $75,000 of direct payments from Epstein to Mandelson in 2003 and 2004.
Over the next few days, documents showed Mandelson leaking sensitive government documents to Epstein – including confirmation of a €500 billion Eurozone bailout.
On February 8th, McSweeney resigned as chief of staff to Starmer. The next day Tim Allan, a friend of Mandelson, resigned as director of communications. Friends of Allan said his departure was not related to anything to do with Mandelson.
Two weeks later Mandelson was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, then released on bail. He denies any wrongdoing.
A Tory “humble address” in parliament was passed, forcing Starmer to release a mountain of Mandelson-related correspondence.
Then, on April 16th, it was revealed that Mandelson failed in-house government vetting, only to be overruled by the UK foreign office. Downing Street said no minister was aware of this at the time. Starmer sacked Olly Robbins within hours. The former mandarin is now taking legal advice on seeking a potentially lucrative payout.
Labour campaigners say the Mandelson scandal has come up repeatedly on doorsteps in advance of the May 7th elections in Scotland, Wales and England, although it is by no means the only source of dissatisfaction with Starmer.
Even if the prime minister survives the aftermath of the elections, there is no end in sight to the Mandelson scandal. So far only 150 pages of documents have been released out of an estimated 100,000 which could be caught in the “humble address” trawl.
There is already speculation about which Blairite ministers were too indiscreet when chatting to the so-called Prince of Darkness before and after his appointment.
“I’ve heard of at least two ministers who might be in trouble,” said one Whitehall figure. “It’s not yet clear whether it’s a case of them badmouthing Starmer or whether it could be something more serious than that.”
Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said the public may start to feel an element of “Mandelson fatigue” but he said that for the prime minister, the Mandelson debacle is “a problem that won’t go away”.
Historian Greg Rosen notes that Mandelson made a key contribution to Tony Blair’s landslide Labour victory in 1997. “But history may accord him an even greater role in undermining Labour’s 2024 landslide government.”
– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
