Sacking Mandelson Hasn’t Put Out Starmer’s Fire – It’s Poured Petrol On It

Right, so so much for integrity. Keir Starmer promised to cleanse British politics of sleaze didn’t he? But by digging up Peter Mandelson from his crypt and parachuting him into Washington, he imported it wholesale. Mandelson, twice-disgraced under Blair and long tainted by his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, was supposed to be the face of Britain in America. Instead, he lasted barely months before crashing out in disgrace, exposed by emails where he called Epstein his “best pal” and pleaded for his early release. Starmer claims he only just discovered the rot, but everyone else knew years ago. The excuse fools no one. Worse still, as Mandelson slinks away, leaving a characteristic stink behind, Starmer prepares to roll out the red carpet for Donald Trump next week — Epstein’s golfing buddy. Integrity, it seems, is a mask Starmer put on whilst not meaning a word of it, but then, not meaning a word he says sums Starmer up to a tee doesn’t it?
Right, so Keir Starmer thought he was drawing a line under a scandal today. By sacking Peter Mandelson as Britain’s Ambassador to the United States, he wanted to project decisiveness and restore the integrity brand that he has long attempted to make his political trademark. Instead, he ripped the mask off his own leadership and revealed the hypocrisy beneath to a degree he’s never done before. Mandelson’s closeness to Jeffrey Epstein was not new information; it had been common knowledge for years. Yet Starmer raised him from obscurity, summoned him from the great political beyond, the Prince of Darkness, and handed him the crown jewel of British diplomacy, and defended him until a series of damning emails left no more room for pretence.
In those emails, Mandelson called Epstein his “best pal” and lobbied for his early release after conviction. This was not the vague social acquaintance Starmer’s people once implied; it was complicity dressed up as friendship. By cutting Mandelson loose, Starmer hopes to cauterise the wound. But instead, he is detonating his own credibility. It’s too late. If Mandelson was unfit now, he was unfit then — and the appointment itself to begin with becomes the scandal.
But actually this scandal exposes that the rot goes a deeper. Next week, having sacked Mandelson over those Epstein ties, Starmer will smile for cameras beside Donald Trump, whose association with Epstein is far better documented and as much as the big orange oaf desperately wants that connection to go away, it won’t and coming to meet the now Epstein scandalised Starmer, its going to be thrust back into the media circus ring. Worse still, the scandal is also resurrecting memories of Starmer’s merciless pursuit of Julian Assange as Director of Public Prosecutions, when he allegedly leaned on Swedish prosecutors, or certainly knew about it as they were told to not “lose their nerve” even as the sexual assault case against Assange collapsed. In Assange’s case, Starmer was ruthless; in Mandelson’s case and his relationship to Epstein, indulgent. So the pattern is unmistakable. When it comes to cronies and power-brokers, Starmer’s standards evaporate. When it comes to those he disagrees with, he hunts them to the ends of the earth.
The Mandelson affair is not a one-off embarrassment but a window through which the character of Starmer’s government and Starmer himself is laid bare: nostalgic for Blair’s tainted politics and a desire to copy them, two-faced in their morality, and willing to protect power at all cost.
The rehabilitation of Peter Mandelson should never have happened. By 2025, he was a ghost of the Blair years: a twice-disgraced minister, remembered as the “Prince of Darkness” who resigned over a secret loan in 1998 and again over a passport scandal in 2001. Mandelson had retreated to the House of Lords, to think-tanks, and to the private sector, surrounding himself with the wealth of others its where he liked to be. He was never Labour. Yet in February of this year, despite all the warnings, despite the knowledge of ties to Epstein, Keir Starmer dug him up from beneath the scrapings below the bottom of the barrel and planted him in Washington as Britain’s ambassador.
This was no routine diplomatic appointment. Washington is Britain’s most important posting, the nerve centre of the “special relationship” after all. To hand it to Mandelson was a deliberate act of political theatre. It signalled Starmer’s devotion to Blairite nostalgia and his willingness to recycle old insiders regardless of public opinion in an effort to associate himself with that and the perceived success of Blair, a con as it actually was, not standing for anything himself of course. Mandelson’s appointment was meant to evoke New Labour’s electoral sheen. Instead, it carried all the sleaze that had once sunk it.
The problem was obvious from day one. Mandelson’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein had been public for years. His name appeared in Epstein’s contact book. He was photographed with him. His visits to Epstein’s properties were noted. This was not buried scandal; it was open record. For Starmer to claim later that he was blindsided by “new revelations” therefore is laughable.
The hammer blow fell, when emails surfaced showing Mandelson calling Epstein his “best pal” and lobbying for his early release after his 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor. This was not just friendship but advocacy for a convicted paedophile. Therefore Starmer finally dismissed him, declaring the material “changed the picture.” In truth, the only thing that changed was Starmer’s ability to keep the scandal contained.
The result is political suicide dressed up as damage control. By appointing Mandelson in the first place, Starmer proved reckless. By sacking him only when forced, he proved spineless. The mask of integrity that Starmer is so desperate to be seen to be wearing slipped, and behind it was the same old sleaze politics Britain was promised an escape from.
The Mandelson scandal refuses to die because it fails the simplest of political tests: everyone knew. His Epstein ties had been dissected by journalists since at least 2020. They were an open secret in Westminster. His presence in Epstein’s black book and his social visits to the financier’s residences were facts, not rumours.
When Starmer insists that “new revelations” left him no choice but to act, he is insulting the public’s intelligence. The revelations confirmed what was already obvious: Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein was intimate and morally toxic. What they destroyed was not Mandelson’s career alone, but the fig leaf that had shielded Starmer’s judgment.
This is why the sacking backfired. Had Starmer defended Mandelson to the bitter end, he would at least have looked stubborn. By sacking him now, he looks cowardly and opportunistic. He appointed Mandelson when everyone knew, and then pretended to discover what had been public knowledge for years. Integrity collapses not just in the act but in the insult of the cover story.
The deeper question is why Starmer risked it in the first place. The answer is Tony Blair. Mandelson was Blair’s consigliere, the architect of New Labour’s image, the fixer who managed crises and spun disasters into victories. By elevating him, Starmer was chasing the ghost of Blairism past, hoping to revive the aura of the 1990s when Labour last commanded vast majorities.
But nostalgia is a dangerous drug. Mandelson embodied both Blair’s triumphs and his rot. He was indispensable in crafting the message, but he also resigned twice in disgrace. He symbolised spin at its most effective, but also sleaze at its most corrosive. By bringing him back, Starmer imported Blair’s weakness but without any of his charisma.
It also revealed the insularity of Britain’s ruling class. The “Old Boys’ Club” recycles its own, no matter how tainted. Mandelson had no business in Washington. Yet he was handed the role because he belonged to the club, because his name resonated in elite circles, because Starmer preferred loyalty to merit. It is cronyism in its purest form, and in this case it backfired so spectacularly that it has damaged not just a man but an entire government.
The most damning proof of Starmer’s hypocrisy lies in the timing. Within days of sacking Mandelson for Epstein ties, he will welcome Donald Trump to London. Trump’s connections to Epstein are not marginal either; they are infamous. In 2002, Trump described Epstein as a “terrific guy.” The two socialised regularly in the 1990s and 2000s. Epstein recruited some of his victims while working at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort in Florida. These facts are documented in court records and investigative reporting.
If Epstein association is disqualifying for Mandelson, how is it irrelevant for Trump? The contradiction is grotesque. Starmer applies one standard to a disposable ally now and another to the most powerful man in the world. Integrity is revealed not as principle but as political convenience.
The image this projects is devastating. Britain’s ambassador is destroyed for Epstein ties while the Prime Minister rolls out the red carpet for a president enmeshed in the same scandal. Starmer’s mask of integrity has not just slipped; it has shattered. What is left is raw hypocrisy, visible now on both sides of the Atlantic.
The hypocrisy becomes even more poisonous when set against Starmer’s record on Julian Assange. As Director of Public Prosecutions, Starmer oversaw the Crown Prosecution Service at a critical juncture in Assange’s case. In 2013, Swedish prosecutors considered dropping the sexual assault investigation they were chasing. At that point, CPS lawyers warned them not to “get cold feet.” It has been alleged those words came from Starmer himself, but whether they did or not, he knew the score, he was the boss. The result was years of continued pursuit, keeping Assange trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, before his eventual arrest and confinement in Belmarsh prison.
The evidential basis for Sweden’s case was collapsing, but Starmer’s CPS ensured the pursuit continued. As Jewish Voice for Labour has documented, the CPS’s interventions prolonged Assange’s suffering and served the political interests of Britain’s allies, particularly the United States.
No doubt many who have thought of Assange and Starmer’s time as DPP at the CPS will also be turning their minds back to the matter of Saville now too in light of this and the same sleazy double standard present in that case too.
Compare all that with Mandelson. A man whose emails show him calling Epstein his “best pal” and lobbying for his release was given indulgence and even promotion. A dissident journalist accused in a case prosecutors wanted to abandon was hunted mercilessly in comparison though under Starmer’s command. The double standard is damning here too. Starmer punishes enemies of power but shields its friends. He treats integrity not as principle but as a weapon.
The Mandelson scandal is not just a personal failure though; it is an institutional one. How did the vetting process allow such an appointment? Was the Foreign Office overruled? Did civil servants warn against it? Or was the entire process a farce, a rubber stamp for political patronage?
Ambassadorial appointments to Washington are too important to be handled like personal favours. Yet this is what happened. Mandelson was installed not because he was the best diplomat, there was already someone in place who had forged good relations with Trump, Karen Pierce, but because he was a Blairite insider and had Starmer’s favour, he got the job. The result is not just a personal scandal but a national humiliation. Britain has lost its ambassador in disgrace within months of appointment. It looks amateurish, sloppy, and unserious on the world stage.
Starmer promised professionalism after Conservative chaos. What he delivered was cronyism dressed up as diplomacy. The vetting process was not just inadequate; it has been exposed for every bit the sham it was.
Why did Mandelson’s ties finally destroy him now, after years of being tolerated though? The answer lies in exposure. As long as suspicions remained circumstantial, Starmer could bluff. Once the emails emerged, the scandal became undeniable. Mandelson became an embarrassment too radioactive to protect.
This demonstrates the cynical mechanics of modern politics though doesn’t it? Wrongdoing is survivable until it becomes impossible to deny. Mandelson was acceptable until the evidence made him unacceptable. Starmer’s dismissal was not the act of a principled leader but the reflex of a politician caught cornered.
The narrative is now fixed and beyond Starmer’s control, something he will not like at all, control freak that he is. Starmer is not decisive but desperate. He is not moral but manipulative. He did not act out of integrity but out of panic. Once such a perception hardens, it is hard to reverse. This isn’t just a tale of Starmer’s lack of integrity and sleaze, but his spinelessness too.
The fallout at home will be brutal and it’s not altogether clear its survivable either. Starmer’s claim to integrity was his central selling point. It is now in ruins. The public sees a leader who, they already widely despise, who appointed a tainted ally, defended him until forced to retreat, and then lied about why. “Two-faced Starmer” is a label that will haunt him, words that will be a footnote in the dreary pages that will sum up his political career.
Inside Labour, the knives are being sharpened. They were already being sharpened because he cannot lead and Labour’s polling continues to nosedive. Mandelson was the embodiment of Blairite dominance. His disgrace provides ammunition for those already uneasy about Starmer’s reliance on the old guard, even amongst those of his own faction, because there’s no loyalty amongst right wingers. Backbench grumbling will grow, they will smell blood.
Internationally, the scandal humiliates Britain at the worst possible moment. Losing an ambassador to Washington in disgrace is a disaster. Doing so just as the US president, also tainted by the same scandalised figure visits, is farce bordering on tragedy. Britain’s claim to professionalism is in tatters.
Epstein’s name carries global resonance as shorthand for elite impunity and abuse. To have Britain’s ambassador and America’s president both touched by it is to drag the “special relationship” into a swamp of sleaze. Starmer’s attempt to present himself as a restorer of integrity has imploded. He looks not like a statesman but like another operator trapped in hypocrisy.
Keir Starmer thought sacking Peter Mandelson would end a scandal. Instead, it revealed the scandal of his leadership. Mandelson’s fall exposed the truth: Starmer’s integrity was always just another one of his many lies. When tested, it cracked, and beneath it lies hypocrisy, cronyism, and selective morality.
He elevated Mandelson knowing his record. He sacked him only when cornered. He claims integrity while preparing to welcome Trump, Epstein’s golfing companion. He pursued Assange with merciless zeal once upon a time while protecting cronies like Mandelson in the here and now until it became impossible to continue. His judgment looks reckless, his principles non-existent, and his brand lies in ruins.
The real scandal is not Mandelson. It is Starmer. His integrity has not just been undermined; it has been shattered. His credibility has not just weakened; it has imploded. By cutting loose his ally, he hoped to save himself. Instead, he has exposed himself as two-faced, and for someone already as vastly unpopular as he is, it might be one blow too many.
This now of course comes hot on the heels of questions still being asked about a certain RAF refuelling plane circling over Doha two days ago as Israel bombed the capital in an assassination attempt on Hamas leaders. The official line now is that the RAF was taking part in exercises with the Qataris, but at the same time Doha was being struck, this jet just carried on circling? Really? Get all the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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