This time there can be no way back for Peter Mandelson
On 9 June 2009 Mandelson told the House of Lords that, as Business Secretary and First Secretary of State, he was focused on helping Britain to emerge from recession “stronger, more competitive and able to grow in the future,” adding that government policies will “enrich our society.”
Days later he appeared to be more focused on enriching his friend, Jeffrey Epstein. On 13 June, Mandelson forwarded to Epstein an internal Downing Street note, addressed “Dear Gordon” and written by Nick Butler, a senior advisor to then Prime Minister Gordon brown.
The note concerned a possible sale of public assets that could be sold to reduce government debt. Mandelson described it to Epstein as an “interesting note.” In another exchange, Mandelson and Epstein discuss the “commercial sense” of continuing to back Brown as PM and, most shockingly, it also appears as if Mandelson gave the disgraced financier advance notice of a eurozone bailout at the height of the bloc’s currency crisis.
Beyond these conversations, which appear to reveal a grotesque breach of confidence and a betrayal of Mandeslon’s own government, colleagues and country, there are hundreds of email exchanges that show the depths of Mandeslon’s relationship with Epstein and the depths to which that friendship dragged the veteran Labour politician. At one point, discussing one of Epstein’s recent investments, Mandelson asks whether he “needs a Lord for the board.”
We know that he encouraged a US bank to “gently threaten” the Treasury over new bank bonus taxes, and we know that he regularly consulted Epstein on his professional and private life. We know that he appeared devoted to Epstein’s interests while serving at the heart of Downing Street and we know that he kept Epstein intimately informed on the downfall of a Prime Minister. There are other, seedier exchanges that further erode what’s left of Mandelson’s reputation.
One is left with the impression that while appearing as a loyal public servant during periods of tremendous upheaval in the political and economic life of the UK, his attention was frequently and shamefully elsewhere. From this appalling tranche of emails we know that Mandelson would joke about his previous falls from grace, but this time there can be no coming back.
Let the last word go to the dead paedophile, who told Mandelson in an email in July 2011, “you are a controversial figure.”