The fatal flaw that brought down 'Air Miles Mandelson'

Peter Mandelson achieved much for Labour and the governments he served in, and, without being pompous, for the British people.

- SEAN O'GRADY

He was a key figure in saving his party in the 1980s, an outstanding EU trade envoy, too, and was already plainly a skilful ambassador in Washington. He was usually well-respected by those he worked with and, for some leaders of his party, regarded as indispensable.

His gifts are considerable - but so, evidently, are his flaws. He will carry with him for the rest of his life the shame - there is no better word for it - that he was advising Jeffrey Epstein on “strategy” and urging him on in his plea bargaining for a reduced prison sentence on the charge of procuring a minor for prostitution. Keir Starmer was right to sack him.

This goes way beyond being just another member of Epstein’s circle. Mandelson should have known that supporting Epstein was wrong and unforgivable, and he should, at that point, if not long before, severed his links with the paedophile. Instead, he was reassuring him by email that “your friends stay with you and love you”. The sycophancy in their exchanges, most graphically in Mandelson’s 10-page handwritten contribution to the “birthday book” for Epstein, organised by Ghislaine Maxwell, is disturbing to say the least.

How did Mandelson place himself in such a position? One of the more revealing, not to say tawdry, exchanges between him and Epstein occurred just before noon on 27 October 2005. It tells us, I think, a lot about the supposed “friendship” between the two men, as well as about Mandelson’s apparent fascination with wealth - his own and other people’s (which were sometimes linked).