'Make me ambassador': new revelations on Mandelson scandal embarrass Starmer
Three volumes of documents, over a thousand pages of emails and messages shed light on the background to Peter Mandelson's appointment to the prestigious role of British ambassador to Washington
LONDON - "Make me ambassador and you won't regret it". Three volumes of documents, over a thousand pages of emails and messages shed light on the background to the appointment of Peter Mandelson to the prestigious role of British ambassador to Washington. In the name of transparency, Downing Street published on the afternoon of 1 June the most voluminous correspondence ever made public. The only documents missing are those that could jeopardise the ongoing investigation and which the police therefore wanted to keep confidential.
It is shaping up to be another difficult day for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has already come under fire for appointing Mandelson as ambassador despite many having warned him about the former Labour minister's problematic friendship with American financier Jeffrey Epstein. Starmer had then been forced to sack Mandelson a few months after the appointment when the Epstein files revealed that the close relationship between the two had continued even after the financier had been convicted of paedophilia and gone to jail a first time. The British police are instead investigating other revelations from the Epstein files, which show that Mandelson had sent his financier friend confidential and market-sensitive information during the great financial crisis when he was deputy prime minister.
The documents released today therefore do not touch on the issues of the ongoing investigation, but they do reveal how little Starmer was respected by Mandelson. In messages to Pat McFadden, a close associate of the PM, the would-be ambassador writes that 'the team in Downing Street don´t know what Keir thinks or wants, in fact they don´t think Keir knows what he thinks or wants either' and criticises the PM for 'lacking panache and energy, as do all ministers'. Labour MPs, according to Mandelson, were 'close to mutiny' and the government needed 'a complete overhaul'.
Criticisms that, even though they come from a disgraced figure, coincide with the reservations recently expressed by many Labour MPs about Starmer, accused of not having a clear plan of action, of changing his mind too often and of not having been able to exploit the decisive victory at the polls that less than two years ago had given the Labour party an overwhelming majority in Parliament. It is no coincidence that a challenge to Starmer is in the offing, with several contenders for the succession, first and foremost the popular mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, nicknamed 'the king of the North'.
Not surprisingly, documents released today show that Mandelson had lobbied hard and persistently for the ambassadorship for which he was convinced he was the best candidate. In a message to David Lammy, current deputy premier and then foreign minister, Mandelson had written 'if you appoint me ambassador you will never regret it'.
