Keir Starmer has faced renewed questions over Peter Mandelson's suitability as UK ambassador to Washington after further details emerged of the Labour peer's friendship and business dealings with Jeffrey Epstein. The prime minister was urged to sack Mandelson during Prime Minister's Questions, with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey both pressing him on the matter.
It was reported that Mandelson, while serving as business secretary in 2010, allowed Epstein to help broker the sale of a government-owned business to a US bank, months after Epstein had been released from jail for child sex offences. The revelations came as Democrats on the House oversight committee released Epstein's 50th birthday book, which included a handwritten note from Mandelson calling the financier "my best pal".
In an interview with The Sun, Mandelson admitted that more "very embarrassing" details of his friendship with Epstein would emerge, but insisted he had never witnessed any "wrongdoing". Starmer told MPs that "full due process" was followed when Mandelson was appointed, and expressed confidence in his ambassador, describing Epstein as a "despicable criminal" whose victims were "at the forefront of our minds".
Badenoch called for all correspondence between Mandelson and Epstein to be published and questioned whether it was tenable for the ambassador to remain in post. Davey asked whether it was appropriate for Mandelson to serve as the key UK-US liaison given that the Trump administration may hold further embarrassing material about him. Meanwhile, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage defended those who had associated with Epstein, arguing that many prominent figures in American society had links to him.
