By Michael Holden
LONDON (Reuters) -Peter Mandelson, one of most formidable and prominent figures in British politics for 30 years, twice bouncing back from scandals that forced him from government, was finally brought down by his close connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Hired to be Britain's top diplomat in Washington less than nine months ago because of his smooth-talking skills which Prime Minister Keir Starmer hoped would win over Donald Trump's administration, Mandelson was
fired on Thursday over emails he sent to Epstein revealing the depth of their relationship.
"I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened," Mandelson said in emails to Epstein in 2008 shortly before he pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution of underage women.
"Your friends stay with you and love you," he said in the emails seen by British media.
Able to shrug off scandals that others seemingly could not, even he could not escape the implication of the Epstein revelations.
"The former Labour MP (member of parliament), spin doctor and ‘Prince of Darkness’ previously resigned twice over political scandals, but his Jeffrey Epstein links are the final straw," the Times newspaper said on X.
MANDELSON HELPED BLAIR SWEEP TO POWER
Mandelson, 71, first emerged as a pivotal player in the 1990s as he helped restore the credibility of the Labour party and then helped his close friend Tony Blair sweep into power in 1997, a crushing victory he was credited with bringing about.
He was also the driving force behind London's Millennium Dome - the much maligned and derided tourist attraction built at a cost of more than 750 million pounds ($1.02 billion) to mark the turn of the century and now the O2 concert arena.
To his supporters, he was a master of strategy with unmatched presentational skills. But his ruthless handling of the press and silky behind-the-scenes cunning provoked fear, distrust and enmity, even from within Labour circles.
In 1998, he quit as trade minister over a loan he received from a fellow minister to buy a house in a fashionable west London area amid questions over conflict of interest.
Less than 10 months later, he was back in government in one of the swiftest come-backs in modern British political history, this time as Northern Ireland Secretary overseeing the crucial implementation of a peace deal.
But his second stint only lasted until early 2001 when he was forced out again, this time over his alleged involvement in a passport scandal involving the Indian billionaire Hinduja brothers who had agreed to help fund the Millennium Dome project, although he was later clearly of acting improperly.
He was not long out of frontline politics for long.
In 2004, his friend Blair turned to his charm and skills to be Britain's European Commissioner for Trade to help smooth relations which had been damaged by Britain's involvement in the invasion of Iraq the previous year.
He held that job for four years before being given a life peerage and made Lord Mandelson in 2008, ahead of a return to government as business minister, a role he held until Labour's election defeat two years later.
While he was feared and disliked by some within Labour, his undoubted diplomatic skills and trade experience led Starmer to appoint him UK ambassador to Washington - the first political appointee to the role in almost half a century.
COURTING THE RICH AND POWERFUL
"Some around Mr Trump see me as they view many in Europe. They see me as a left-wing progressive, somebody who might even be anti-business or somebody who might be following the sort of liberalism they've just defeated in America," Mandelson told the Financial Times in an interview in February.
"What they will discover is I'm not an uber-liberal, I'm not a wokey-cokey sort of person, and I'm pro-market and pro-business."
But, as for much of his career, his courting of the rich and famous was once again to lead to his downfall.
Questions had been raised about his closeness to Epstein following the financier's conviction, and asked about his links by the FT, he delivered a blunt response.
"I regret ever meeting him or being introduced to him by his partner Ghislaine Maxwell. I regret even more the hurt he caused to many young women," he said in February.
"I’m not going to go into this. It's an FT obsession and frankly you can all fuck off. OK?"
But, revelations this week, such as describing Epstein's convictions as "wrongful", proved it was not OK.
"I regret very much that I fell for his lies, that I fell, and accepted assurances that he had given me about his indictment," Mandelson said on Wednesday.
"With hindsight, with fresh information many years later, we realised that we had been wrong to believe him ... I regret very much indeed, I felt it like an albatross around my neck since his death." ($1 = 0.7387 pounds)
(Reporting by Michael Holden, editing by Elizabeth Piper and William Maclean)
