3 hours ago
3
This is the end, beautiful friend, the end. There have been many Peter Mandelson resignations. Twice from the cabinet, once as the UK ambassador to Washington. But the announcement late on Sunday night that Mandelson was resigning from the Labour party somehow felt more final.
In the past, there had always been get-out clauses. Unexpected routes back to the centre of power. Not this time. Somewhat late in the day, the establishment had closed every door. For the first time in decades, Mandy was truly on his own. You might ask what had taken everyone so long. Mandelson hadn’t exactly made much effort to hide his tracks.
The silence was overwhelming. With the release of further Jeffrey Epstein files revealing even closer and possibly incriminating ties between Mandelson and the disgraced financier, all of his lordship’s – we can still call him that for now – former friends have melted away. Over the years, Tony Blair has spoken up for any number of corrupt dictators. For Mandy, Tony was nowhere to be seen. Bad line. Wifi is down. Not sorry.
Nothing from George Osborne, who found himself on the same yacht as Peter in Corfu. Surely he might have had a good word. They seemed to be having a nice enough holiday bromance at the time.
Keir Starmer is now wishing he had never heard of Mandy. Struggling to come to terms with it being less than a year since he had thought it was an inspired move to send Britain’s most accomplished sycophant to blow smoke up Donald Trump’s bum. The president would love a man who was impressed with all the gold, the bullshit and the tackiness. Hell, Mandy is the one man on the planet who would have genuinely adored the Melania film.
Maybe we could all overlook his friendship with Epstein? Now Starmer finds his judgment in the spotlight as he seeks to obliterate all ties. He is looking for ways for Mandelson to be permanently removed from the House of Lords and not allowed to use his title. He also wants him to testify before the US Congress.
Other UK politicians have followed suit. Kemi Badenoch also demanded an investigation into Mandelson. Ed Davey wanted a police inquiry. It turned out there was more to Peter than even they had imagined. They had all believed in the empty shell theory of Peter. That reduced to his core was a nothingness. No values, no sense of self. Just pulsating need. A little boy who could never have enough.
But there was also betrayal. Mandelson had his own code of honour. One calibrated to his own rich list. For decades now, many of us have been wondering just what the oligarchs and the Epstein elite got out of their relationship with Mandy. But now we know.
There was a quid pro quo. Or a dollar pro quo. Because the Epstein files appear to show three payments of $25,000 to Mandelson back in 2003-04. We don’t know what the money was for and Peter, the man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, claims to have no memory of that. Maybe people paying Peter $75k for the pleasure of being Peter is totally normal. He wanders round with a card reader. “$5k for me to say you are utterly marvellous,” he whispers. I’m sure it’s all been properly declared to HMRC so maybe they have a view.
Mandelson thought the super-wealthy were his cash machine. The passport to the life he should have had. Take his husband, Reinaldo, emailing Epstein in 2009 for money for an osteopathy course. And when he had received $10,000, he checked in hopeful that the course fees of £3,250 had been paid separately. Because every penny counted. Surely even this was a low point for Mandelson. A point at which his morality had been utterly corrupted.
Or not quite. Because we now get to the quo. In 2009, Mandelson was serving in Brown’s cabinet as business secretary. Only it now turns out that Mandy thought he was serving Epstein. Pressing “forward” on sensitive cabinet documents to Epstein. He even gave the convicted child sex offender advance warning of the €500bn bailout to save the euro.
It didn’t end there. Epstein also wanted help with proposed UK taxes on banker bonuses. Mandelson volunteered advice and suggested the director of JP Morgan should be “mildly threatening” towards the then chancellor, Alistair Darling. Mandelson had been asked to pick a side. His greed, his envy, didn’t even make him have to think twice. If it was a choice between betraying his colleagues and his country or keeping in with the people who paid for his luxuries, it was a no-brainer. Those holidays weren’t going to pay for themselves.
The strange thing is that it has taken until now for some of the details to emerge. Mandelson has always been reckless. He has just always believed his charm would be enough to get him through any complications. He even gave the impression he cared more about himself than Epstein’s victims. Now he has been laid bare. One day Mandelson may even come to recognise himself for what he is. For now, he is on his own. Peter’s friends have all but melted away.
