Mandleson has crippledthe Government

Telegraph Politics 11/03/26 The signs that this tranche of Peter Papers would be politically combustible were there at PMQs, two hours before release. Keir Starmer repeatedly tried to emphasise his superior judgment in a series of fiery exchanges with Kemi Badenoch. He came to the bear pit determined to lambast the Leader of the Opposition for making the wrong call on joining the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and to accuse her of political caprice. Badenoch simply wanted to press him on fuel duty – a sensible line of attack given mounting public concern over the economic fallout from the Iran conflict.

Starmer’s real message was that, when it matters – war – his judgment is sound. Puffing himself up, he took on the Statesman cosplay. The public should see him as a steady hand: serious, forensic, with solid instincts. Unfortunately the Mandelson files have swiftly trashed that claim. What they show, in black and white, is that the risks surrounding the appointment were not obscure, hidden, or the product of hindsight. They were identified, documented and put to the Prime Minister as part of the due diligence process. The warnings were not subtle; there was no uncertainty that this was a massive political issue. They highlighted the continuing association between Lord Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool and Jeffrey Epstein of Fantasy Island, and they recorded details that, in any normal appointment process, would have set the warning sirens blaring. One stands out above all. Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s New York townhouse in June 2009 while the financier was serving a jail sentence for procuring a minor for prostitution. For most public appointments – not least one representing Britain abroad – that alone would have been grounds for disqualification. The best that could be said is that Mandelson was not a safe, conventional appointment, but nor was Trump a safe, conventional president. It was felt the quondam Dark Lord had leverage in a landscape where none of the usual guidelines applied. Faced with these revelations, the Government’s response has been predictable. Chief Secretary to the PM and general factotum Darren Jones repeated in a Commons statement the assertion that Starmer was misled. But are we really supposed to believe that the former director of public prosecutions, that titan of legal profundity, was hoodwinked? The Government has now retreated into the familiar refuge of process. The Ethics and Integrity Commission (I hear you yawning already) has been tasked with reviewing “lobbying, disclosure and access to government”. The Mandelson affair, Starmer says, has prompted reflection on the “systems, infrastructure and processes for upholding standards more broadly”. When a decision proves politically indefensible, announce a review. How many times have we seen that ploy? Among the most damning revelations is the concern raised by Jonathan Powell, one of the most experienced figures in the diplomatic establishment, who, with characteristic restraint, described the process as “weirdly rushed”. When he raised his concerns with Morgan McSweeney, he was reportedly told that the issues had already been addressed. The haste is particularly curious given that many within the diplomatic service believed the sitting ambassador, the usually blunt but otherwise blameless Dame Karen Pierce, could simply have remained in post for another six months. Then there is the matter of Mandelson’s departure. His contract reportedly makes clear that he was not entitled to notice if his employment was terminated, citing “the power of the Crown to dismiss at will”. Yet taxpayers still ended up footing a £75,000 severance payment. Jones claimed the payment was made to avoid greater costs at an employment tribunal. That he is probably correct is yet another indictment of our crazy employment laws. This is not the end of the story: we’ve only had sight of the first wave of Mandelson files. There is also the question of how far the contagion spreads. Who lobbied on his behalf ahead of the ambassadorial appointment? What representations were made inside Government? What advice, formal or informal, was he offering behind the scenes? Labour MPs, who expected their government to be defined by competence and probity after years of Conservative turmoil, are furious that such an obvious risk was taken in the first place. This fiasco will drag on for months, leaving the Government functionally crippled, overseen by a Prime Minister with no authority. Even with key figures now out of the picture, the damage is clearly not contained. Should Mandelson face criminal charges we can expect more trouble. Meanwhile, the economy, and our poor country, sinks into the sunset as our pygmy politicians exercise their energies in yet another blame game. A final thought: this generation of politicians had no idea of the records they were leaving behind, firing off messages with little sense of the permanent record they were creating. It was an era before disappearing messages and encrypted threads became routine. In the future, might we see a return to letters via pigeons and whispered conversations in quiet bars?