The curtain descends on Prince of Darkness

VERY few politicians have been as controversial or as effective as Peter Mandelson.

- Martyn Brown

Perhaps only Donald Trump draws comparisons to the man known for decades as “The Prince of Darkness”.

So it was an appropriate and calculated decision to place the two in the same orbit when Sir Keir Starmer made the Labour Grandee Our Man in Washington.

He desperately needed the ear of the president. What he got — for nine eventful months — was a consummate “Trump Whisperer”. But it is due to a shared former connection, Jeffrey Epstein, that Mr Mandelson has now lost this plum diplomatic role.