Peter Mandelson’s career has been defined by comebacks.
But the UK’s top diplomat in Washington has now been sacked over his links to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Lord Mandelson’s appointment as Sir Keir Starmer’s ambassador to the US was the first political one in decades, coinciding with Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Lord Mandelson began his political career as Labour’s communications director in 1985 before becoming an MP in 1992. He served in the cabinets of Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, but resigned twice, in 1998 and 2001.
He then became Britain’s European commissioner from 2004 to 2008 before making an astonishing return in 2008 under Mr Brown, who made him a peer and business secretary.
A linchpin of the New Labour project from its birth in the early 1990s, Lord Mandelson witnessed and participated in the feuds that dominated much of its 13 years in power.
His ability to manipulate the levers of power from the shadows earned him monikers such as “the Prince of Darkness” and “the Dark Lord”.
His first departure from the Department of Trade and Industry in 1998 came after it emerged that he had received a £373,000 home loan from the then paymaster general Geoffrey Robinson.
He returned to the cabinet as Northern Ireland secretary in 1999, but quit again in 2001 after he became embroiled in the Hinduja affair.
He was accused of helping one of the Indian billionaire Hinduja brothers get a British passport in return for a £1m donation to the Millennium Dome.
Despite his being cleared by an inquiry of any impropriety in the case, his Westminster career looked as though it was finished and he became a European commissioner in Brussels.
But Mr Brown recalled him to the cabinet table as business secretary in October 2008, in a move that was widely seen as an attempt by the then prime minister to shield himself from Blairite criticism as he came increasingly under fire.
Lord Mandelson was chief strategist for Labour in London in the 2010 election, while Mr Brown toured the country.
A vocal critic of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, he later provided advice to Sir Keir as the latter sought to win power.
He had been widely tipped as the next chancellor of Oxford University in 2024, a position that instead went to Conservative peer William Hague.
He was named Sir Keir’s ambassador to the US in December, ahead of Trump’s return to the White House.
Lord Mandelson’s trade experience was seen as a strength in light of the US president’s pledge to impose wide-ranging tariffs, and he has been a key figure in negotiations to ease their impact on the UK.
Questions had been raised about his links to disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein in recent years. But new revelations that he supported Epstein while the disgraced financier was being investigated for sexual offences prompted calls from both Tory opposition leader Kemi Badenoch and some Labour MPs for him to be sacked.
Reporting by both The Sun and Bloomberg revealed emails in which Lord Mandelson told Epstein he was “following you closely and here whenever you need” and urged him to “remember [Sun Tzu’s treatise] The Art of War” when dealing with prosecutors.
He is also reported to have told Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before the latter was sentenced to 18 months in prison, and told him: “I think the world of you” the day before he began his sentence.
Speaking on The Sun’s Harry Cole Saves the West programme, Lord Mandelson said he regrets “very, very deeply indeed carrying on” his association with the financier “for far longer than I should have done”.
His sacking on Thursday may mark a departure for Lord Mandelson that even he will not be able to come back from.
