Peter Mandelson

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    Thursday briefing: W​ill the Epstein ​files ​threaten ​Peter Mandelson’s ​legacy​?

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    In today’s newsletter: A police investigation, newly released documents and long‑standing questions about​ accountability have converged to place one of Labour’s most enduring figures under unprecedented scrutinyGood morning. Older readers may remember Peter Mandelson as a man in a sharp suit drifting through New Labour’s 1990s heyday like a Bond villain with a Filofax. An architect of Labour’s modernisation and a lightning rod for right-wing press ire, he has been in the orbit of power for more than three decades.That run has now come to a shuddering halt after the release of the so-called Epstein files by the US Department of Justice, which detail the extent of Mandelson’s contact with the late billionaire financier and convicted child sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein. While the Met police investigate Mandelson on suspicion of misconduct in public office, the disclosures from the files have also raised urgent questions about judgment, access and accountability at the highest levels of public life.UK politics | Labour MPs have warned that Keir Starmer’s days as prime minister are numbered after a day of fury over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.Gaza | Israeli forces have bulldozed part of a Gaza cemetery containing the war graves of dozens of British, Australian and other allied soldiers killed in the first and second world wars.Crime | An 18-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a student in his 20s was stabbed in Leicester city centre and later died in hospital, Leicestershire police have said.Media | Washington Post editor in chief Matt Murray on Wednesday morning announced internally a “broad strategic reset” that will result in “significant” layoffs across the company.Immigration | Donald Trump’s border tsar said about 700 federal agents would leave Minnesota, a large drop in agents on the ground but still leaving about 2,000 agents there, far above typical levels for the state. Continue reading… More

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      The Guardian view on Epstein, power and accountability: full transparency is the least survivors deserve | Editorial

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      As the wheels of justice begin to turn in Britain, a spotlight should also shine on the financier’s wealthy enablers in the US“The more Epstein documents get released, the more we see how he had so many powerful friends, and that’s ultimately what helped him,” commented the US lawyer Lisa Bloom in an interview with the Guardian this week. As Ms Bloom, who represents 11 of Jeffrey Epstein’s dogged and brave victims, drily notes: “That’s not the way the justice system is supposed to work.”From the outset, the Epstein affair has offered a textbook example of the ability of the influential and well-connected to avoid scrutiny and intimidate those who would exert it. A ruthless pursuit of transparency, both institutional and personal, is the only way to combat such tactics and hold power to account. In the extraordinary days following the release of further Epstein files last week, the wheels of justice in Britain are belatedly beginning to turn on that basis.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading… More

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      Never forget Epstein’s little helpers – the powerful men who knew about his crimes, and helped him out anyway | Marina Hyde

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      I’m sorry, but this is not just a political scandal. Time to refocus on the horrific mistreatment of women and girls, and the role of these ghoulsLike a lot of women, I do vaguely care about the latest political implosion of Peter Mandelson – but I think we’re all massively more obsessed with the fact that there really was a network of incredibly famous and powerful men trying to help a known ex-con minimise and wave away his underage sex crimes. Amirite, ladies? Sure, I’m crying my eyes out about some Gordon Brown adviser having his asset-sale memo forwarded in 2009 … but at the same time I’m a whole lot more concerned about the actual Sex Bilderberg. Which, even now, our eyes seem to keep being conveniently dragged away from. Can we refocus?We are, naturally, talking about the Jeffrey Epstein files. Since the latest lot dropped, I’ve been collating the emails from extremely famous men who actively sought to help the since-deceased underage sex trafficker trivialise his crimes in the years after his jail release in 2009. Richard Branson, Noam Chomsky, Steve Bannon, Mandelson, Andrew (obviously) – all of these men offer strategic advice, or media training, or chummy solidarity. Or, in the case of Chomsky, all of the above plus a drive-by on the notion of female victimhood. According to text signed under his first name that Epstein sent to a lawyer and publicist in February 2019, months after the Miami Herald had run an explosive series of articles laying out the scale of Epstein’s serial underage sexual abuse and the perversion of justice that covered it up, Chomsky sneered at “the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women”. Wow. Never mind Manufacturing Consent – have a read of Not Giving A Shit About Consent. I thought Chomsky cared about power and exploitative elites? Still, nice photo of him laughing it up with Steve Bannon. Continue reading… More

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      Epstein files: has Trump really been ‘absolved’? | The Latest

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      Donald Trump claims that the release of millions more files related to Jeffrey Epstein ‘absolve’ him of wrongdoing, even though his name appears hundreds of times. The latest documents also indicate high-profile figures , including the former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Labour peer Peter Mandelson, continued friendships with the disgraced financier after his child sex abuse convictions. So what have we learned from the newly released files and what happens next? Lucy Hough speaks to columnist and host of Politics Weekly America Jonathan Freedland Continue reading… More