Who is Peter Mandelson, the UK government’s ‘Prince of Darkness’?

Peter Mandelson – a ghoulish Labour adviser with the air of a man who would kidnap Paddington and sell him to a taxidermist – has been appointed as the new UK ambassador to the US. Some expert analysts have suggested that Mandelson’s pro-China and anti-Brexit positions will land him in trouble in Washington, but at least he and Trump have one thing to bond over: their widely reported, long-standing association with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Here’s a brief guide to this sinister man.

During the 90s and 00s, Mandelson was a major figure in Tony Blair’s Labour and is often credited as one the architects of the party’s rightward shift. Earning the nickname “the Prince of Darkness”, he was forced to resign from cabinet twice in the space of two years over dodgy financial dealings. His time since leaving office has been no less controversial, culminating in the alleged recent revelation that he enjoyed a years-long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced billionaire financier who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting charges for sex trafficking.

The extent of their alleged relationship came to light in 2023, following the publication of an internal report authored by investment JP Morgan on the subject of its own dealings with Epstein. According to this report, Epstein and Mandelson enjoyed a “particularly close relationship”, so chummy that Epstein referred to Mandelson by the affectionate nickname “Petie”.

In 2009, the report suggests, Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan, while at that time Epstein was in prison for ‘soliciting prostitution from a minor’. A Channel 4 Dispatches programme also alleged that Mandelson called Epstein while he was in prison to ask for a favour. Following Epstein’s release, the JP Morgan report also alleges that Mandelson stayed with him at his Paris apartment on two further occasions.

Other photos show Mandelson celebrating Epstein’s birthday in Paris, in 2007, and another, from 2005 shows the pair shopping together in the Caribbean. It’s not clear when they first met, but a New York Magazine article from 2002 describes Mandelson attending an intimate dinner party at Epstein’s townhouse, where Donald Trump was also present. Despite all these allegations, a spokesperson for Mandelson has denied that he had “any kind of professional or business relationship with Epstein in any form”.

“Lord Mandelson very much regrets ever having been introduced to Epstein. This connection has been a matter of public record for some time.”

For the Labour leadership, none of this is disqualifying. You can be suspended from the party for backing a ceasefire in Gaza or voting against the two-child benefit capbut Keir Starmer has nothing to say about Mandelson’s association with a convicted sex offender beyond “I don’t know any more than you do.”

Mandelson being handed such a prestigious appointment just shows that the bar for being “disgraced” today is ridiculously high, as long as you’re wealthy, powerful and have the right politics. Regular Joes like you or I, on the other hand, couldn’t repeatedly hang out with the world’s most notorious sex offender without facing serious professional and social consequences (not that we would want to).

As for what we can expect from Mandelson’s tenure as ambassador to US, a recent interview with The News Agents podcast saw him reeling off a number of right-wing talking points: Kamala Harris – who devoted a ludicrous amount of campaign energy to winning over moderate Republicans – lost the election because she was too focused on single-issues and identity politics, instead of “people flooding over the border in an uncontrolled and unmanaged way”. Trump only ran anti-trans ads because “he saw a stick to beat the Democrats with and that stick was out into his hands by the Democrats”, presumably by being too supportive of trans rights (an issue which Harris hardly spoke about all during her campaign, beyond saying that states should “follow the law” on gender-affirming care).

Far from being a potential thorn in the side of the incoming administration, he thinks that calling Trump an ‘authoritarian fascist’ is hyperbolic, and believes that the UK needs to start buttering up Elon Musk, on the basis that he’s too powerful to be ignored. In other words, it looks like Mandelson is going to fit into Trump’s Washington just fine.