Lord Peter Mandelson would like the public to believe that his long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein was a kind of polite optical illusion: dinners without context, hospitality without knowledge, intimacy without awareness.
The late financier, he insists, was a man whose darker habits simply took place elsewhere—out of sight and, conveniently, out of mind.
In his first interview after being sacked as Britain’s ambassador to Washington, Mandelson told the BBC that he never saw young women at Epstein’s properties and that the only people he encountered there were “middle-aged housekeepers”. He declined to apologise to Epstein’s victims on the grounds that he was not “knowledgeable of what he was doing”. He further suggested that he may have been “kept separate” from the sexual side of Epstein’s life because he is gay.
This is an extraordinary proposition. It asks the public to accept that Epstein—already a convicted sex offender by 2008—ran two entirely separate social worlds under the same roof, and that Mandelson, one of the most politically astute operators of his generation, happened to occupy the innocent one.
It is a defence that sits uneasily with the growing body of documentary evidence released by the US Department of Justice. Emails made public last week shed fresh light on the closeness of the relationship between Epstein and the former Labour cabinet minister—closeness that extended well beyond the casual acquaintance Mandelson now implies.
The correspondence shows that in September 2009, just weeks after Epstein’s release from prison for soliciting prostitution from a minor, the financier paid £10,000 into the bank account of Reinaldo Avila da Silva, now Mandelson’s husband. Mr da Silva had asked Epstein to fund an osteopathy course and other living expenses. A few days later he replied: “Thank you for the money which arrived in my account this morning.”
At the time, Mandelson was serving as business secretary in Gordon Brown’s government. In December of that same year, he appears in emails to agree to try to influence government policy on bankers’ bonuses at Epstein’s request—an issue that, coming just 18 months after the financial crash and taxpayer bailouts of the banking system, was among the most politically sensitive of the era.
On 9th December 2009, the then chancellor Alistair Darling announced a 50 per cent “super tax” on bonuses, designed to stop remuneration being artificially inflated by public money. Epstein’s interest was not academic.
The tone and substance of the correspondence become even more troubling in a subsequent exchange dated 15 December 2009, parts of which have had email addresses redacted. Epstein presses Mandelson directly on whether the policy might be softened. “Any real chance of making the tax only on the cash portion of the bankers bonus,” he asks. Mandelson replies: “Trying hard to amend as I explained to Jes last night. Treasury digging in but I am on case.” Epstein responds: “Let me know before Jes please.” “Ok. They are not being helpful…,” comes Mandelson’s reply. “They JPM or they Treasury,” Epstein asks. “Treasury,” Mandelson answers.
The informality, urgency and expectation of preferential access sit awkwardly with Mandelson’s later insistence that he was merely a distant social acquaintance, somehow insulated from Epstein’s world.
Mandelson insists there was no impropriety. Perhaps. But propriety is not the same as judgement—and judgement is precisely what is in question. To maintain a friendship with a man convicted of sexual offences against a minor is one thing. To exchange supportive, businesslike emails with him after that conviction is another. To do so while a spouse receives money from the same individual, and while sensitive public policy is being discussed, is something else again.
Mandelson argues that he would have apologised had he been “in any way complicit or culpable”. But this sets the bar implausibly high. One need not be criminally complicit to recognise a moral failure, or to acknowledge that one’s choices caused legitimate distress to victims of abuse.
His suggestion that he was somehow excluded from Epstein’s behaviour because of his sexuality is, frankly, bewildering. Epstein’s predation was not tailored to the preferences of his guests; it was systemic, rooted in wealth, power and secrecy. To imply otherwise risks trivialising the nature of the crimes themselves.
A recently released image—circulating as part of the Epstein files—showing what appears to be a lightly clad Mandelson in the company of a young woman in a bathrobe does nothing to prove wrongdoing. But it does undermine the claim of total separation, and reinforces the sense that Mandelson’s defence relies less on fact than on selective blindness.
None of this establishes criminal guilt. But it does expose the hollowness of Mandelson’s protestations. This was not a naive blundering into bad company. It was a former senior minister, fully aware of Epstein’s conviction, choosing repeatedly to maintain closeness with a man whose reputation was already beyond salvage.
The real offence here is not legal but moral. Mandelson’s refusal to apologise is less a defence than a statement of priorities. It suggests that reputation management matters more than empathy, and that technical innocence is considered a sufficient substitute for accountability.
For the victims of Epstein’s crimes, such distinctions will bring little comfort. For the rest of the public, Mandelson’s explanation strains credulity to breaking point.
Main Image: U.S. Dept of Justice.
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