Labour Peer Under Fire for Refusing Epstein–Mandelson Questions

A Labour politician’s car-crash inter­view has dragged Peter Mandelson’s name back into the spot­light, as fresh scruti­ny mounts over his his­toric links to con­vict­ed sex offend­er Jef­frey Epstein.

Baron Man­del­son — once one of the most pow­er­ful fig­ures in Tony Blair and Gor­don Brown’s gov­ern­ments — was forced out of his role as UK ambas­sador to the Unit­ed States on Thurs­day. The dis­missal fol­lowed the emer­gence of emails he had exchanged with Epstein, along with evi­dence sug­gest­ing he down­played the dis­graced financier’s 2008 con­vic­tion for child sex offences.

Mandelson’s down­fall has sent shock­waves through West­min­ster. A let­ter he con­tributed to Epstein’s lav­ish 50th birth­day book resur­faced this week, in which he referred to the bil­lion­aire pae­dophile as “my best pal” while still serv­ing in Blair’s cab­i­net. Offi­cials now allege that Man­del­son failed to ful­ly dis­close the extent of his rela­tion­ship with Epstein when he was appoint­ed ambas­sador ear­li­er this year.

The scan­dal inten­si­fied today dur­ing a Sky News inter­view with Lord Fal­con­er, anoth­er senior Labour fig­ure who sat along­side Man­del­son in Blair’s cab­i­net. Asked repeat­ed­ly about the con­tro­ver­sy, Fal­con­er flat­ly refused to answer — stonewalling no few­er than eight sep­a­rate attempts to ques­tion him.

At first, Fal­con­er tried to steer the con­ver­sa­tion toward his cur­rent cam­paign on assist­ed dying, which is due to be debat­ed in the House of Lords. But as inter­view­er Kamali Mel­bourne pressed him on whether he had spo­ken with Man­del­son or felt embar­rassed by the rev­e­la­tions, Fal­con­er became vis­i­bly uncom­fort­able.

“Would you mind if I don’t go there?” he asked, before repeat­ing: “I’m afraid I won’t go there … I’m not going to com­ment at all.”

Even after sev­er­al fol­low-ups, Fal­con­er stuck to his line, insist­ing: “I’m not remote­ly embar­rassed, I real­ly do want to focus on assist­ed dying.”

The eva­sive exchange has only deep­ened spec­u­la­tion around how much senior Labour fig­ures knew about Mandelson’s friend­ship with Epstein, and whether par­ty grandees are seek­ing to close ranks.

For his part, Man­del­son has admit­ted that the pub­li­ca­tion of his cor­re­spon­dence was “very embar­rass­ing.” He said he felt a “tremen­dous sense of regret” over his asso­ci­a­tion with Epstein and sym­pa­thy for the vic­tims, but also stressed that the com­mu­ni­ca­tions were more than two decades old.

“I was tak­en in by a charis­mat­ic crim­i­nal liar,” he claimed.

In a let­ter to staff at the British embassy in Wash­ing­ton fol­low­ing his dis­missal, Man­del­son described serv­ing as ambas­sador as “a priv­i­lege.” He wrote:

“The cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the announce­ment today are ones which I deeply regret. I con­tin­ue to feel utter­ly awful about my asso­ci­a­tion with Epstein 20 years ago and the plight of his vic­tims. I have no alter­na­tive to accept­ing the Prime Minister’s deci­sion and will leave a posi­tion in which I have been so incred­i­bly hon­oured to serve.”

Mandelson’s res­ig­na­tion marks a dra­mat­ic fall for a man once con­sid­ered a mas­ter strate­gist at the heart of New Labour — and the fall­out from his Epstein con­nec­tion shows no sign of abat­ing.