'Where r u? I miss you' How latest emails sealed ex-Labour minister's fate

It was the evening of 6 May 2010 and months after being released from jail for procuring a child for prostitution, Jeffrey Epstein was curious as to the result of Britain's general election.

- Daniel Boffey Chief reporter

"Well?" he emailed Peter Mandelson, the then de facto deputy prime minister in Gordon Brown's government.

Minutes later, and a few hours before the polls closed, Mandelson responded: "We are praying for a hung parliament. Alternatively, a well hung young man."

In an interview with the BBC last month that appeared to be an attempt at rehabilitation after he was sacked as US ambassador over fresh revelations about his ties to Epstein, Mandelson insisted he had been "at the edge of this man's life". If the implication was that he was insignificant to Epstein, that may be arguable. But some of the millions of fresh emails released by the US justice department seem to make clear that Epstein was right at the heart of Mandelson's world for a number of years.

Taken together, and followed by his resignation from the Labour party and calls for a police investigation, they appear to be the epitaph for a politician who may finally have encountered a scandal he is unable to outrun.

Mandelson's relationship with the financier was professional and personal - intimate evenwith the boundaries between the two blurred to the point of being non-existent.

When the Labour peer believed his then-partner, now husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva had gained access to his texts in March 2010, it was Epstein he turned to for help.

"I have had v bad setback with R who has somehow got into my texts," wrote Mandelson, who by then was already number two in the UK government. "What shall I do? You may need to help. How does he see them?" Epstein responded: "This email is probably compromised as well, lets talk."

When buying a new house and wondering whether to borrow £4m at a 3% interest rate, Mandelson again sought Epstein's advice.