The Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland stood by a man who stood by a piece of slime who procured little girls for sex. Just kick that one around for a moment and let it sink in. The Prime Minister of your country backed a convicted paedophile’s pal. Trusted his judgement.
Just 72 hours after Sir Keir Starmer said he was “proud” to stand by his tax-fiddling Deputy Leader Angela Rayner, he stood shoulder to shoulder with the buddy of the world’s most vilified child abuser. This isn’t just optics, it is complete moral bankruptcy.
If Starmer’s judgement is SO catastrophically poor what the hell is he doing in No10? What chance has Britain got with that at the helm?
The “paedo’s pal” I’m talking about is that Uriah Heep of British politics that is Peter Mandelson of course. And the paedo? Why, that would be the twisted disgusting excuse for a human being that was Jeffrey Epstein.
If you look up the word “grubby” in the dictionary you’ll see it says: “covered with dirt; grimy, disreputable, Peter Mandelson.”
At least it should, because there is no other way of viewing Mandelson’s involvement with Epstein.
Mandelson was the chief architect of Blair’s New Labour, fomented over many evenings in Islington’s then achingly trendy Granita restaurant.
Back then when he acquired the nickname “Prince of Darkness”, it was not seen as a damning indictment but a back-handed compliment, as likely to be used by friends as enemies, nodding as it did to Mandelson’s ruthless cunning, ability to work the backchannels and skill at pulling the strings while remaining in the background.
Little did we realise however just how dark that darkness was.
Mandelson’s Achilles heel was always that he would go weak at the knees when in the company of wealth and power… like a teenage girl fawning over a boy band.
And this got him into trouble time after time – he was (and this should be obvious to any sentient being, even Prime Ministers) clearly a serial offender.
First off he allowed Geoffrey Robinson (paymaster general in Tony Blair’s government) to kindly lend him £373,000, interest-free, natch, so he could buy a gaff in supercool Notting Hill.
Mandy resigned over that one.
But, as we know, a politician’s resignation isn’t like one you or I would make and just a year later (1999) he was back in Blair’s government as secretary of state for Northern Ireland, in which role he was accused of helping the uber-rich Hinduja brothers secure British citizenship, allegedly in return for a £1m donation to the Millennium Dome project.
The allegations were fiercely denied – but in 2001 Mandelson resigned for the second time.
You may think he would be thoroughly disgraced as a politician by now and might slink off to write his memoirs. Alas no, he re-emerged as EU trade commissioner, whereupon he became dazzled by riches again, this time in the form of Italian shoe tycoon Diego Della Valle, then later the Russian aluminium oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
Mandelson seems to have a weakness for private yachts – and could happily be found on vessels belonging to both the above, despite having at least some say over their business dealings in his EU role.
Illegal? Heavens no!
But grubby? Oh I think so.
Which brings us to the grubbiest of all – Mandelson’s friendship, and subsequent defence of, a horrid, nasty paedophile and suspected trafficker of children for sex.
Mandelson bleats he was somehow duped by Epstein’s lawyers that the poor maligned uber wealthy weirdo Epstein was innocent.
But there is NO defence here. None. Nada.
By your friends shall ye be known and all that.
Epstein was convicted of sex crimes, somehow managed to dodge a tranche of others after cutting a deal, and was denied bail while facing even more.
This time, he was accused of running a “vast network” of underage girls for sex.
Now just read what Mandelson wrote to this piece of scum (and see if you can keep your lunch down):
“Your friends stay with you and love you,” Mandelson told Epstein after his arrest in Florida.
“I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened.”
“Everything can be turned into an opportunity and that you will come through it and be stronger for it. The whole thing has been years of torture and now you have to show the world how big a person you are, and how strong.”
“I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain.”
(On that last point, bearing in mind Rotherham, Rochdale, Oldham et al, he may be right).
And so Britain’s ambassador to the US has gone.
Good. He was an international embarrassment to the nation.
But it is the job of a journalist to react to events by looking further down the road at the implications of said event.
And it is becoming impossible to conclude anything other than this Government, and in particular this Prime Minister, are not even close to being up to the task of governing.
Once again how did it take Starmer so long to see what was crystal clear to the rest of us?
And why are we asking this same question time and time again?
Starmer’s days are numbered.
The countdown has begun.