Terry Prone: No way back this time for Labour’s self-pitying moral chameleon Peter Mandelson

Power, influence, and position have been taken from Mandelson previously, and he always recovered. This time, however, no recovery is possible. He’s done

Peter Mandelson feared that details of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted paedophile, would prove to be ‘embarrassing’.

‘I think we assumed the worst because of what had gone before.”

That’s what Alistair Campbell said, years ago, when the man currently known as Lord Mandelson had to do one of his serial resignations because of an accusation.

That particular accusation didn’t stand up, but someone, nonetheless, might have brought the Campbell observation to the attention of Keir Starmer and his apparently omnipotent adviser, Morgan McSweeney, when they were doing due diligence into Mandelson before appointing him as ambassador to the US.

Because, as due diligence goes, this wasn’t a great example. 

Vetting should assume the worst

Starmer trotted it out early last week when he still had confidence in Mandelson. But it was the wrong kind of vetting process, starting from the wrong place. Vetting for any crucial post should always assume the worst and start with what has gone before. 

Past performance, as the financial advertisements tend to point out, is no guarantee of future outcomes, but it can be usefully indicative. 

Once a pattern has been established, it is rarely deviated from, and the Mandelson pattern, established early in his career, was one that suggested he was less than principled, maybe somewhat less than punctilious, when it came to money.

You might think that because he had been forced to resign over a loan permitting him to buy a four-storey house, he would learn a lesson and subsequently be scrupulous about freebies. Especially in recent years when he was earning hand over fist. But he wasn’t.

Mandelson is not alone in this 

Now, in fairness, he’s not alone in this. The very rich often seem to be afflicted with a fear of poverty which predisposes them to the acceptance of freebies — witness the gift bags at parties for the Oscars. 

The acceptance of freebies, psychological research proves, makes the person taking the unpaid for item (even if it’s only a mint from a bowl at the cash register) think more positively about the person or institution giving the gift. Influence accrues.

Over the weekend, we learned from the BBC, that: “Jeffrey Epstein paid for Lord Mandelson’s travel on two separate occasions in 2003 totalling more than $7,400 (£5,400), according to documents released by the US House of Representatives oversight committee. 

"This is the first time financial evidence of Epstein paying for Mandelson’s travel has come to light.”

The travel was paid for, according to the Beeb, “just months after Mandelson contributed a 10-page note to Epstein’s 2003 ‘50th birthday book’,” in which he referred to Epstein as his “best pal”.

Of course, this was five years before Epstein was convicted of the trafficking of underage women for sex. And Starmer, when the vetting process was going on, didn’t have access to papers held by the US department of justice. Nor could Starmer have known, or even suspected, that Mandelson would have encouraged Epstein to seek early release in emails that don’t seem to have addressed in any way, shape, or form the central accusation — paedophilia — against the financier. 

Mandelson’s own mention of himself being a gay man carried the primary implication that Epstein’s favours to straight men, in the form of gifted teenage girls, could not apply to him and the secondary implication that he, Mandelson, would therefore not know what Epstein was up to at all at all.

The most amazing word: 'Embarrassing'

What’s most amazing about the exposures over the last week is Mandelson’s rueful prediction, relatively early on, that more would come out and it would be embarrassing to him. 

Here’s a man steeped in mainstream media all of his life, not to say obsessed by it, who interpreted the release of materials that would show him claiming to be best friends with a convicted paedophile and promising the man undying fealty as likely to be merely “embarrassing”. 

That is to betray a skewed understanding and an inability to predict the inevitable which seems surprising in a man regarded as one of the earliest spin doctors. The skewed understanding of the truth-in-media nexus is not new, either.

Previous resignations

Back when he was forced to resign a position after it was revealed that he had taken an enormous amount of money in a loan from a political friend, his response was equally odd.

“I should have been open about it,” he said at the time, “and in so doing I would have protected myself from the appearance of a conflict of interest. I didn’t and I have paid a very big price for it.”

First of all, being open about the loan would have been the ethical thing to do, not a mechanism of self-protection. 

Secondly, it wasn’t an appearance of conflict of interest. 

Thirdly, the self-pity speaks to the false valence this man places on himself.

But then, this is the Labour Party member who once described himself as “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. 

It’s fair to assume that the filthy richness of Epstein took precedence in Mandelson’s mind over the man’s conviction for exploiting young women, since he went on, after Epstein had served his time, to do financial deals worth billions with him. 

I refer Irish Examiner readers to “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, above.

Mandelson's FT interview 

Four days before becoming ambassador to the US, when he might have taken the opportunity to demonstrate his diplomatic strengths, he was being interviewed about his association with Epstein by a writer from the Financial Times. 

Instead, he demonstrated an extraordinary lack of self control. He did the ritual expressions of regret over having encountered the man who, remember, he had in writing called his best pal. A diplomat would have left it at that. 

The Financial Times guy might even have left it at that. But Mandelson couldn’t resist an addition.

“I’m not going to go into this,” he snapped. “It’s an FT obsession and frankly you can all fuck off.”

Clearly, it was not a Financial Times obsession, but an underlying threat about which Mandelson was properly terrified. 

He may not have had access to the now-defunct email account wherein he cast doubt on Epstein’s conviction, but he would have observed that media of all kinds were minded to pursue anybody — Donald Trump and Prince Andrew included — known to have hung around with the financier, and that this pursuit carried the potential to wreck what might otherwise have been a triumphant finale to his career. 

Telling one prestigious publication to eff off looks, in retrospect, like a symptom, rather than a strategy.

Power, influence, and position were taken from Mandelson before, and he always recovered. 

He was the defining mover and shaker and a moral chameleon with it. 

Having publicly rubbished Trump, he pivoted effortlessly to being a fan of him. This time, however, no recovery is possible, and he’s being stripped even of honorary degrees. He’s done.

Meanwhile, the weak, indecisive UK prime minister welcomes Trump this week on a state visit. What plays in Starmer’s favour is that the US president has zero interest in public discussion of anything related to Epstein. Or Mandelson.