Accused of terrible misjudgment in appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington, Sir Keir Starmer says that questions were raised but answered with lies. Mandelson “portrayed Jeffrey Epstein as someone he barely knew” and was sacked as soon as it became clear the relationship had been much closer.
Addressing the scale of the deception on Thursday, the prime minister sounded authentically outraged. Mandelson had failed a “basic test of honesty” and “such deceit is incompatible with public service”. Credulity is not a great defence. Focusing on the lies obscures the extent of what was already known to be true when the fateful appointment was made.
It was not a secret that Mandelson had some kind of friendship with Epstein. Evidence of it was in the public domain. The necessary question that followed was what level of intimacy with a man who had trafficked underage girls for sex might be tolerable in a potential ambassador. The only good answer was zero.
Downing Street failed to apply that test. One explanation is that Mandelson was deemed to possess unique qualities that made him suitable as an emissary to the court of Donald Trump. The cupidity that brought him into Epstein’s orbit in the first place, his social facility in that sleaziest of milieux, may even have been a perverse recommendation, given the character of the US president.
The risk of some scandal erupting – high in any event, given Mandelson’s record of ignominious resignations dating back decades – was deemed worth taking for the perceived benefit of influence in the White House.
If that was indeed the reasoning, it speaks to more than just a malfunction of political antennae. To weigh the downside of association with a convicted sex offender against an upside in diplomatic access is a calculation that would not even have occurred to people who kept care and respect for Epstein’s victims uppermost in their minds.
Sir Keir has apologised to those victims, but his regret is expressed in self-exculpatory terms – contrition for having been deceived into allowing Mandelson’s appointment. There is a strain of self-pity in that formulation, as if the salient offence that needs addressing is a fraud perpetrated against the prime minister and he, too, is a victim. The more profound apology owed by the Labour leader to women and girls exploited by Epstein is for not having given them enough thought before the scandal started to threaten his position.
It is feasible that Sir Keir did not interrogate the ethics of choices being made in his name regarding the ambassadorial appointment because he had outsourced much of his political judgment to Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff and a protege of Mandelson.
Many Labour MPs suspect that Mr McSweeney has had too strong an influence in Downing Street for too long. His position already looked vulnerable given the party’s dismal polling and likely mauling in May’s local and devolved elections. It looks increasingly untenable given the Mandelson association. But criticism of an adviser is usually a proxy for dissatisfaction with the leader. Overreliance on bad advice is another symptom of deficient judgment. Unless there is some drastic change in the political weather, the tide of Labour frustration with poor decisions made in No 10 can only rise, sooner or later sweeping Sir Keir from office.
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