Labour's devotion to 'Prince of Darkness' lays bare its failings

JUST when you thought Labour couldn’t get any more sleazy, allegations emerge that Peter Mandelson — Sir Keir Starmer’s now-sacked US ambassador - passed on confidential government information to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein when he was business secretary in 2009.

- Tim Newark Political Commentator

Given Mandelson’s chequered record, these latest claims expose once again the PM’s woeful judgment in sending him to Washington.

Again and again, Labour ignored the trail of grubby deals that followed Mandelson — once dubbed the Prince of Darkness.

From a dubious home loan, to securing a foreign plutocrat’s passport, to preening himself aboard the yachts of billionaire Russian oligarchs, and now being snapped in his underpants in Epstein’s apartment, Mandelson has always been drawn to very wealthy people.

Ironically, what made him a shrewd choice as US ambassador to Donald Trump, a complete lack of Left-wing virtue signalling, meant he hid in plain sight from the Labour leadership under Blair, Brown and, most recently, Starmer. So desperate were they for a pragmatic if devious enabler, they constantly overlooked his flaws.

It says a lot about the hopeless Labour Party that they have so few realistic politicians to choose from their ranks of ideologically blinded apparatchiks.

NOW it appears that not only was Mandelson a Machiavellian money-grabber, he may also have passed privileged, market-sensitive government information to his “best pal” Epstein.