Lord Mandelson, one of the main architects of New Labour, the man who never seems far from political scandals, has found himself mired in such a swamp that even he couldn’t spin his way out of it.
Of surviving cash for access rows, lobbying controversies, questionable associations and guacamole embarrassments, Lord Mandelson has resigned from the Labour Party following the latest release of the Epstein files.
The files reveal that he received more than £50,000 from the disgraced paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Lord Mandelson says he does not recall the payments and expressed regret.
But Lord Mandelson isn’t an aberration.
He is New Labour-personified. Obsessed with presentation, reputation management and the assumption that if you use words to mean what you want, Humpty Dumpty words, the substance can be elided.
Because while Lord Mandelson has finally accepted his fate, the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer’s judgement must still be under scrutiny.
He appointed Lord Mandelson as the British Ambassador to the United States after winning the General Election in 2024.
With limited vetting, and in spite of Mandelson’s penchant for scandal, he used Mandelson to sell his dreadful Chagos deal to Donald Trump.
Jacob Rees-Mogg has shared his opinion on Labour’s latest scandal with Peter Mandelson
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Mandelson and Chagos are intimately linked and to other Republicans in Washington.
This was the Mandelson expertise to be able to sell the worst deal, to spin it as if it were gold, rather like a failed Rumplestiltskin.
In September 2025, when emails between Lord Mandelson and Epstein were revealed showing a close friendship between the two men, the Prime Minister told the House of Commons this.
He said: “The relationship between the US and the UK is one of our foremost relationships, and I have confidence in the ambassador in the role that he is doing.”
Days later, he fired Lord Mandelson after immense political and public pressure.
Lord Mandelson quit the Labour Party on Sunday
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But it wasn’t what he wanted to do, was it? He left Britain then with an interim ambassador.
Mandelson last night resigned from the Labour Party and today the Government says he should be removed from the House of Lords.
Darren Jones said: “Peter Mandelson must account for his actions and conduct. It is an understatement to say that his decision to continue a close relationship with a convicted paedophile, including discussing private government business, falls far below the standards expected of any minister.
“His behaviour was unequivocally wrong and an insult to the women and girls who suffered. No government minister of any political party should have, nor ever should behave in this way.”
Well, I think the one thing that the Minister got right is to say it’s an insult to the women and girls involved, but it is the culmination of the rot at the heart of New Labour’s ideology.
In the 90s, Tony Blair’s Labour shifted its focus to spin PR and optics with little regard for truth or respect for the British people.
Today, Sir Keir Starmer suggested Angela Rayner may make return to frontline politics after resigning as Deputy Prime Minister over tax discrepancies on her third home.
Rayner says she made an honest mistake and there is no suggestion of criminality. But her tax affairs remain unresolved on transparent and not properly disclosed yet.
She may soon be back on the frontbench.
This is sheer arrogance. It’s exactly the same type of arrogance that allowed Mandelson to return after so many scandals.
What we your masters do wrong ought not to worry you, the little people. It is the model of socialism. Do as I say, not as I do.
It is contemptuous to the British people and to taxpayers. It is contemptuous to voters who were promised change from elitist politics.
And the failed Chagos deal, which was sold to Washington by Mandelson, was falling apart as part of this, as Trump realises what a bad idea it was in the first place.
Mandelson’s downfall is the legacy, the culmination, the ultimate conclusion of New Labour.
