Peter Mandelson launched a four-letter tirade at journalists, the House of Commons has been told. The MP who revealed the incident, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, earned a mild telling-off from the Commons Deputy Speaker after he quoted Lord Mandelson’s outburst in full, complete with the bad language.
Parliament is holding a debate on the appointment of Lord Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the US. Lord Mandelson resigned last week after new revelations emerged about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but Mr Flynn said it was no secret that the pair were close even when the appointment was made.
Mr Flynn said: “It is the Prime Minister who chose to ignore the facts that were plainly in front of him, not for weeks, not for hours, not for days, but for months. He was the man who appointed Peter Mandelson to be the ambassador to the United States, the man who said to an FT journalist earlier this year to f*** off, his quote not mine, because he was being inquired about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.”
Mr Flynn continued: “The greatest scandal of all is the fact that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom appointed a man to that role, knowing that man had maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who had been convicted in 2008 in Florida.” Mr Flynn said it was known that Epstein was convicted for sex offences involving 14-year-old girls.
Commons Deputy Speaker Nusrat Ghani allowed Mr Flynn to finish his speech but then reminded MPs that children were watching the proceedings from the visitors gallery of the Commons. She told MPs: “There are children in the Gallery, let’s keep our language tempered, make sure we are being moderate in everything that we say.”
The Prime Minister’s standing has been “diminished” by the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson, a former Tory cabinet minister has said, as he opened a debate into the circumstances around his dismissal.
Sir David Davis, the Conservative former Brexit secretary who called the emergency debate in the House of Commons on the issue, said the Government needed to show transparency around Lord Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to Washington DC, the vetting process, events around his sacking, and how to get more information on what happened.
During his opening speech, Plaid Cymru’s leader in Westminster, Liz Saville-Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) intervened to say: “The Prime Minister staked his special relationship with the US president on the diplomatic skills of an ambassador who had a special relationship with the world’s most notorious child sex offender.
“I’m sure he agrees with me, that the Prime Minister’s judgment and the UK’s presence on the world stage has been diminished by this affair?”
Sir David said: “There is no doubt she’s correct. Frankly I better try not to make this ad hominem about the ministers who made the decisions, you can make that decision later, as it were, but she’s right, it has diminished the standing of our Prime Minister, and I regret that.”
Dame Emily Thornberry, chairwoman of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, questioned whether those vetting Lord Peter Mandelson were told to “overlook” a “glaring national security and reputational risk”.
Ms Thornberry said her committee had called for Lord Mandelson to appear before them before his appointment but he had not appeared.
She said: “He would have faced a range of questions which would have highlighted issues that needed to be considered properly and couldn’t in the rush to appoint him, perhaps, have been overlooked in the way that it would seem to have been.”
She added: “The question is this, did the Cabinet Office miss the glaring red flag of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein, or did it fail to pass those concerns on.”
Ms Thornberry said career civil servants are regularly subjected to vetting tests, with many stories of appointments being delayed or prohibited because they studied abroad, married an Iranian, or were “simply born in Belfast”.
“Does having significant information in the public domain about your relationship with an internationally prolific child sex offender not raise more red flags than simply being born in Belfast? Is a civil servant a greater risk to this country because they are married to somebody who was born in the Middle East, or because they were close friends with Jeffrey Epstein?”