John Cassidy on the British Labour Party politician Peter Mandelson, who has come under fire as newly released e-mails have revealed his ties to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Not for the first time in his career, Mandelson was disgraced. And things got a lot worse for him at the end of last month, when the D.O.J. released more e-mails revealing that he wasn’t merely friendly with Epstein: in 2009-10, during Mandelson’s time as a government minister, he passed sensitive government information to Epstein.
Referring to the e-mails, Mandelson told a journalist from the Times of London who visited him in Wiltshire that none of them “indicate wrongdoing or misdemeanour on my part.” But he’s now the subject of a police inquiry into whether his leaks amounted to “misconduct in public office”—a criminal offense. And earlier this month, Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, the third-largest party in the House of Commons, called on the Financial Conduct Authority, Britain’s main financial regulator, to launch an insider-dealing investigation into whether Mandelson “or those he leaked information to profited from access to this market sensitive and confidential material.” At this stage, there is no evidence that anybody did. There is also no suggestion that Mandelson had anything to do with Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking. But the furor has enveloped Starmer, who appointed Mandelson as Ambassador in 2024. At a meeting with the Labour M.P.s and peers last week, the Prime Minister said that he has no intention of stepping down. But two of his aides who had ties to Mandelson have resigned, and the scandal has raised doubts about his long-term survival in office. It has also added another twist to the Epstein story, illustrating his role as an information hub and informal lobbyist for Wall Street interests. Last Friday, two House Democrats sent a letter to Mandelson asking him to agree to be interviewed by staff from the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The British press still sometimes refers to him as the Prince of Darkness, a nickname he acquired in the nineteen-eighties, when, as the Labour Party’s young director of communications, he proved to be a ruthless but highly effective political strategist and “spin doctor.” In 1997, Mandelson directed Tony Blair’s victorious campaign for New Labour, which ended eighteen years of Conservative rule, and he was subsequently appointed to the Cabinet. But Mandelson soon proved himself to be a political liability. In December, 1998, he was forced to resign after the Guardian reported that he’d taken an undisclosed home loan from a fellow Labour M.P. who was also a wealthy businessman. The following year, Blair brought Mandelson back into the Cabinet, but he didn’t last long then, either. In January, 2001, he resigned again, this time after being accused of trying to influence a passport application by an Indian businessman who was seeking British citizenship. An independent inquiry found that, in this instance, Mandelson had done nothing wrong. But he couldn’t shed the tinge of scandal or the suspicion that he was overly keen on accumulating money and social status. It’s not clear when Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein started, but in 2003 he contributed to a book of tributes compiled for the financier’s fiftieth birthday, describing him as “my best pal.” In the files, bank documents suggest that in 2003 and 2004 Epstein sent seventy-five thousand dollars, in three payments, to accounts thought to be connected to Mandelson and his longtime partner, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, whom he married in 2023. In 2004, Mandelson went to Brussels as Britain’s commissioner for trade in the European Union. Many observers believed that his days as a major political figure were done, but in October, 2008, as the financial crisis was raging, Gordon Brown, who had succeeded Blair as Labour leader and Prime Minister the previous year, brought Mandelson back from Europe, granted him a life peerage in the House of Lords, and appointed him as business minister. Since Brown and Mandelson had clashed in the past, this appointment came as a surprise. Brown said that “serious people are needed for serious times”: commentators suggested that he valued Mandelson’s political savvy and experience in dealing with foreign governments. The following year, Brown further promoted Mandelson, expanding his department and giving him the honorary title of First Secretary of State. At the time, bank bailouts, accompanied by emergency measures from central banks, eventually restored calm to the financial markets, but that didn’t curb the public anger at the bankers, who were rightly perceived to be in a no-lose position. When times were good, they made pots of money. When a crisis arose, taxpayers stepped in to save them. On December 9, 2009, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a fifty-per-cent, one-off tax on bankers’ bonuses. Politically, this was a popular move, but in London’s financial district—where many big banks, including some based in the U.S., are situated—it sparked outrage and pushback. In a book about the great financial crisis and its aftermath, Darling recalled how a number of bankers called him up and complained about the bonus tax. The callers included Jamie Dimon, the C.E.O. of JPMorgan Chase. “He was very, very angry,” Darling wrote. “He said that his bank bought a lot of UK debt and he wondered if that was now such a good idea. I pointed out that they bought our debt because it was a good business deal for them. He went on to say they were thinking of building a new office in London but they had to reconsider that now.” Reading Mandelson’s e-mails, it appears that Epstein, too, was a part of the pressure campaign. He had a long-standing relationship with JPMorgan Chase, which handled many of his financial dealings, and particularly with Jes Staley, who, as the chief executive of the J.P. Morgan investment bank, oversaw the London office. A few days after the announcement of the new tax, Epstein wrote to Mandelson, “any real chance of making the tax only on the cash portion of the bankers’ bonus.” Mandelson replied, “Trying hard to amend as I explained to Jes last night. Treasury digging in but I am on case.” Two days later, evidently referring to Dimon and Darling, Epstein wrote, “should jamie call darling one more time?” Mandelson replied, “yes and mildly threaten.” Later the same day, Mandelson wrote to Epstein again and appeared to indicate that he, himself, had spoken to Darling and got nowhere. “Crazy response from Chancellor. He appears unmovable.” Darling and the U.K. Treasury resisted the pressure that was brought to bear against them and went ahead with an unmodified version of the bonus tax. Surprise, surprise, JPMorgan Chase and other big banks survived this outrageous assault upon their prerogatives. But as Faisal Islam, the economics editor of BBC News, wrote, the possibility that this backlash “may have been orchestrated partly via Epstein, with Mandelson emailing advice . . . is staggering.” A spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase declined to comment. In the past, Dimon has said that he never met Epstein and didn’t know of him before his arrest in 2019. In 2023, JPMorgan Chase sued Staley, who left the bank in 2013, claiming that he had failed to disclose information about his relationship with Epstein. The case was later settled. In the Labour Party and beyond, the revelation that Mandelson was scheming with Epstein to try to soften one of his own government’s policies generated outrage. “Advising a foreign bank to bully our chancellor in a time of financial crisis—it doesn’t get much lower than that,” Justin Madders, a Labour M.P., said. A Labour veteran who attended the meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party at which Starmer spoke last week told me, via e-mail, “haven’t been to such a big and highly charged one since TB”—Tony Blair—“came to persuade us of need to invade Iraq.” The Epstein files suggest that the introduction of the bonus tax was far from the only occasion on which Mandelson updated Epstein on internal government deliberations or sent him confidential information. In June, 2009, Mandelson forwarded Epstein a memo from the Prime Minister’s office outlining twenty billion pounds in proposed government-asset sales, prompting Epstein to inquire about the nature of the assets. In March, 2010, Mandelson passed along a note about a meeting between Darling and Larry Summers, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary, which included a detailed discussion of the Volcker rule—a proposal to prohibit big U.S. banks from engaging in proprietary trading. At the time, big banks were worried about how the new rule would affect their operations and profitability. Mandelson apparently shared those concerns. Another case of Mandelson disclosing sensitive information to Epstein came in May, 2010, as the Greek debt crisis was consuming Europe and financial markets were slumping. On the afternoon of Sunday, May 9th, Epstein wrote to Mandelson, “sources tell me 500 b euro bailout al=ost complete,” and Mandelson replied, “Sd be announced tonight.” The following day, after the announcement of a big rescue package, stock markets around the world shot up—raising the question of whether someone with advanced knowledge of the package could have profited from it. Since the news of the police investigation, Mandelson hasn’t said anything publicly, and he couldn’t be reached for comment. BBC News reported that his “position is that he has not acted in any way criminally and that he was not motivated by financial gain.” Immediately after the e-mails were released, he defended his apparent efforts during the financial crisis to modify the tax on bankers’ bonuses. “My conversations in government at the time reflected the views of the sector as a whole, not a single individual,” he told the Financial Times. In his interview with the Times of London, Mandelson also dismissed suggestions that his actions had been influenced by payments that Epstein made to him and his partner, da Silva, including one to cover a course in osteopathy that da Silva took. “The idea that giving Reinaldo an osteopath bursary is going to sway mine or anyone else’s views about banking policy is risible,” Mandelson said. If Mandelson was trying to sprinkle some of his old spin-doctor’s magic dust, it didn’t work. At Westminster, there is widespread agreement that this time his political downfall will be final. Gordon Brown, the man who returned him to high office in 2008, spoke for many when he wrote in the Guardian, “That a member of the cabinet at the time was thinking more of himself and his rich friends is a betrayal of everything we stand for as a country.” The former Prime Minister called for the establishment of an independent anti-corruption commission, “with the commissioner given the remit and power in law . . . to root out any criminality in UK political life by detecting and punishing it wherever and whenever it occurs.” That’s an ambitious aim. But, if the release of the Epstein files has accomplished anything, it’s been to demonstrate how, on both sides of the Atlantic, systems corrupted by money are ripe for reform. ♦
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