The latest revelations and reaction to them may mean he has finally encountered a scandal he is unable to outrun.
It was the evening of 6 May 2010 and, months after being released from jail for procuring a child for prostitution, Jeffrey Epstein was curious as to the result of Britain’s general election. “Well?” he emailed Peter Mandelson, the then de facto deputy prime minister in Gordon Brown’s government. Twenty minutes later, and a few hours before the polls were due to close, Mandelson responded: “We are praying for a hung parliament. Alternatively, a well hung young man.”
In an interview with the BBC last month that appeared to be an attempt at rehabilitation after being withdrawn as US ambassador over fresh revelations about his ties to Epstein, Mandelson insisted that he had been “at the edge of this man’s life”. If the implication was that he was insignificant to Epstein, that may be arguable. But some of the millions of fresh emails released by the US justice department seem to make clear that Epstein was right at the heart of Mandelson’s world for a number of years.
Taken together, and followed by his resignation from the Labour party and calls for a police investigation, they appear to be the epitaph for a politician who may finally have encountered a scandal he is unable to outrun. Mandelson’s relationship with the financier was professional and personal – intimate even – with the boundaries between the two blurred to the point of being non-existent.
When the Labour peer seemingly believed that his then-partner, now husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva had gained access to his text messages in March 2010, it was to Epstein that he turned for help. “I have had v bad setback with R who has somehow got into my texts,” wrote Mandelson, who by then was already number two in the UK government. “What shall I do? You may need to help. How does he see them?” Epstein responded: “This email is probably compromised as well, lets talk.”
On Monday, the most damning email yet became public. Mandelson appears to have leaked a sensitive Whitehall document to Epstein, who was still under house arrest at the time, detailing the UK government’s tax plans and intention to sell £20bn in assets. He forwarded the document in June 2009 with the comment: “Interesting note that’s gone to the PM.” Keir Starmer said on Monday that he should lose his title and seat in the House of Lords, and launched an inquiry into his “conduct during his time as a government minister”.
