In short
The fallout from leaked “Epstein files” and scandal around former Labour minister Peter Mandelson, focusing on claims that he was improperly vetted and that he helped forward confidential UK government information to Jeffrey Epstein while Epstein was a convicted sex offender. The episode also argues this is part of a broader Labour leadership/party staffing “Blairism” backlash and could trigger political consequences for Keir Starmer.
Guests/backgrounds
The discussion is between Private Eye journalists (including “Helen” and “Andy/Ben” voices) who cover Westminster and have previously written about Mandelson, lobbying, and Epstein-related reporting.
Key claims
Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador was foreseeable “one time too many”; he lied about not knowing Epstein; Labour’s vetting process failed; and Starmer’s team repeatedly staffed roles with Blair-era figures. The episode also claims Mandelson’s lobbying firm hid clients and that his appointment was “high risk, no possible benefit.”
Notable examples
A 2009 Private Eye “Slicker” item alleging Mandelson discussed Epstein/Wall Street matters; emails allegedly showing Mandelson forwarding policy-related information; references to Mandelson’s husband receiving Epstein-linked funds for an osteopathy course; and a case involving Ken MacDonald allegedly advising on returning a murdered student’s case.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOIntroduction to the Episode
1:00 to 1:30
The hosts introduce the episode and discuss the Peter Principle.
Mandelson's History of Scandal
1:30 to 4:00
The discussion focuses on Peter Mandelson's controversial past and political missteps.
“You know the thing of the Peter principle, where everyone is employed one degree more than they should be?”
Keir Starmer's Political Journey
4:00 to 6:40
An exploration of Keir Starmer's rise through the Labour Party and its implications.
“I know this is my area of specialist interest and or personal psychological scarring, but the Labour psychodrama of this is quite worth revisiting because essentially the series of events is this.”
The Role of Blairites in the Current Government
6:40 to 9:25
Analyzing the influence of former Blair aides in the current Labour government.
“He was the one that was hosting these Sunday night do's with Mandelson and various other people.”
Mandelson's Vetting Controversy
9:25 to 11:15
Discussion on the controversies surrounding Mandelson's vetting and relationship with Epstein.
“This line was repeated by Peter Mandelson.”
Comparing Scandals: Mandelson and Profumo
11:15 to 14:00
Comparison of the Mandelson scandal to historical political scandals like Profumo.
“But the line of the Labour team is, well, Mandelson lied to us when we were vetting him.”
The Role of Low-Level Leaks in Politics
14:00 to 14:23
Explore how low-level leaks impact political decisions in high places.
“that she was sleeping with a Russian spy.”
Culpability and Lies in Politics
14:23 to 14:50
Discuss the implications of believing lies from proven liars.
“And the line that Andy establishes, that everyone lied to everyone, Peter Mandelson voluntarily handed over the information straight away and then lied to the Prime Minister.”
Consequences of the Epstein Files
14:50 to 16:03
Analyze the fallout from the Epstein files on various political figures.
“I know Donald Trump is named thousands of times in the files and apparently this just cuts no ice at all in the USA.”
Mandelson's Political Maneuvering
16:03 to 18:06
Examine Peter Mandelson's controversial role in politics and lobbying.
“I suspect that this was a man who used to fax mean things to his enemies really quite later to the 90s.”
Show all 18 chapters
The Epstein Connection: Lawyers and Scandals
18:06 to 22:27
Investigate the connections between Epstein, lawyers, and political scandals.
“serving as a member of the House of Lords, a member of Parliament, wasn't he, Ian?”
Mandelson's Connections and Controversies
24:58 to 28:00
Discuss the controversial connections of Peter Mandelson amidst ongoing scandals.
“I just want to thank the judges of the whole competition who did a brilliant job.”
The Case of Martine Vic Magnusson
28:00 to 30:46
Explore the troubling case of a Norwegian student and the implications of elite connections.
“So we're having all this discussion about Keir Starmer as former director of public prosecutions.”
Ghislaine Maxwell’s Wealth Revelation
30:46 to 31:55
Discover the shocking sources of Ghislaine Maxwell's wealth and its implications.
“The thing that's interesting about these files, whether or not you're looking at criminal wrongdoing in all these cases, and obviously you're not in all of them, you are looking about the...”
Political Ramifications and Labour's Leadership
31:55 to 34:44
A discussion on the potential political fallout within the Labour Party and its leadership.
“There weren't secret, her friends in New York, and everybody is the poorer.”
Combat Sports Event Promotion
34:44 to 36:21
A promotional segment for an upcoming combat sports event featuring notable fighters.
“but he has kept a little bit quiet because his chief money man is now involved in this too.”
Current Political Landscape and Leadership Concerns
37:01 to 42:00
Examine the unstable political landscape and leadership concerns in the Labour Party.
“So those are some of the side cases that haven't received maybe the attention that they deserve.”
Political Landscape and Leadership Challenges
42:00 to 46:30
Explore the complexities of the current political climate and leadership dynamics within the Labour Party.
“in which he went, well, you know, if the ball came loose from the back of the scrum and this has become a very brief, you know, Carnes mania.”
Transcript
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1:30You know the thing of the Peter principle, where everyone is employed one degree more than they should be? This is the Peter Mandelson principle, where you come back one time after you really should be. One time too many.
1:41Helen Lewis:One time too many, yeah. I would say three is three times too many. I suppose we're going to start off with how this whole thing unfolded in the first place. Were there any signs possibly that making Peter Mandelson ambassador to the USA was a bad decision? Yes, the two previous resignations for basically exactly the same sort of thing, which is having slightly suspicious relationships with wealthy people. It's how much due diligence you actually need to do, because you can pretty much guarantee that if you give Peter Mandleton a job, he's going to be in with some dodgy, very, very rich person.
2:10He's not going to declare that to the people he should have been. He's going to open up some sort of back channel to do some kind of dodgy favour for them. And he's going to have to resign pretty quickly and make everyone look stupid. I mean, it's not hard to work out, is it?
2:21Helen Lewis:I mean, I'm not saying that I was underwhelmed by this scandal, but there has been a lot of this is the greatest scandal since the Profumo affair, it's the scandal of the century, whatever. And I kept running into my but this is what Peter Mandelson does kind of filter. And I also wonder whether or not for people who aren't so tuned into the Westminster bubble and the soap opera aspect of it, the way that it's affected now, Keir Summers now former Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, this was just a kind of like more sort of snouts in the trough kind of. I put it on a par with maybe MPs' expenses perhaps as the most similar scandal of the kind, which is, I think it will have validated a lot of people's prejudice about the kind of thing that they thought politicians were all up to anyway.
2:56I know there's an element of it which is very much scorpion stings frog shock, but there is also an element where we were promised all sorts of boring process. We were promised a politics that treads lightly on everyone's lives and we don't appear to have that. I still cannot believe anybody's surprise. I've made a point about the cover about Beatrice and Eugenie being sold off to Epstein, which we made a long time ago. But when he went on that yacht with Osborne and Deripaska, Briver, I ran a cover and we put in as many puns as we could at the time. I feel sleaze sick. Every Mandy for himself.
3:33Bankers away. Corfu. What a stink. I mean, it's not as though whenever Mandy did anything involving rich people, no one noticed. How can he have gone through? and that scandal's not mentioned in the top three, which are all... We didn't have to resign over that one. It was one of the rarities, wasn't it? And you asked yourself, why not? But it did happen and everybody knew, everybody in politics knew, what happens when you appoint Mandy. And they did it anyway.
4:02Helen Lewis:Not to... I know this is my area of specialist interest and or personal psychological scarring, but the Labour psychodrama of this is quite worth revisiting because essentially the series of events is this. Keir Starmer is elected in 2015, having been a very successful human rights lawyer, but fundamentally fairly apolitical. And he moves his way through the Labour ranks by essentially attaching himself to Brexit, which he was shadow Brexit secretary. And that's a really useful place to be in with the membership because they were fervently far more pro-European than Jeremy Corbyn, at the same time that they absolutely loved Jeremy Corbyn and were very resistant to people from the centre and the right of the party having a go at Corbyn.
4:40Helen Lewis:But this was the one issue, actually, that Corbyn was not as one with the membership on. So when you get to that leadership election in 2020, I went to see Keir Stalmer do his hustings. And you would not have thought you could really put a cigarette paper between him and Corbyn. That's the way he presented it. He thought Corbyn had been a bit soft on anti-Semitism that come up on the doorsteps. And he actually wished that he'd been more repellent of Brexit, both of which were kind of OK with the membership. But he did not present himself as this radical departure. But what then subsequently happened is through Morgan McSweeney, he kind of bought in this entire agenda.
5:12Helen Lewis:that was the one in which they won such a big majority last year, which was essentially appealing to white working class voters, people who might have been Labour to reform switchers, hero voters, they called them, whatever it was. But in order to kind of staff that, when the gravity of the party was still somewhere in the Corbyn to Ed Miliband soft left zone, they ended up bringing in a lot of Blairites, right? And I think this is one of the things, as we're recording this, Tim Allen has just gone from Downing Street as Executive Director of Communications. He was only brought back in September.
5:42Helen Lewis:a Blair veteran. We've talked before, you mentioned Alan Milburn brought in to do health, a Blairite veteran. Jonathan Powell. Jonathan Powell in National Security. Yeah. And, you know, this other person who I think maybe is a landmine for the future, Matthew Doyle, who was a comms person in the Blair era, brought back to do comms for Keir Starmer, has just been ennobled by him and is facing questions about why he kept supporting a guy who had been charged with looking at child sexual abuse material and then ran against Labour as an independent. This is not Epstein. This is another paedophile, just to keep tracking if you're playing at home.
6:16Helen Lewis:But one of those issues is the fact that they essentially, what is the Starmer project? They just bought in Blairism as a way of staffing up roles because they're just, in a long time in opposition, lost all that institutional memory. So you're getting a kind of, I guess for you two, who were in a private eye through the Blair era, this is a sort of bizarre déjà vu. It's all happening again. Roger Little suddenly we're talking about again. He was the one that was hosting these Sunday night do's with Mandelson and various other people. He's yet another name that was knocking around when I first started at the magazine.
6:48It is extraordinary. I cannot believe there's nobody else alive in Britain who couldn't do the job better than people who worked for Blair in a very previous government. Why? Why would you let Mandelson vet candidates? Of all people, why would you let Mandelson do anything? It's still utterly beyond me. But yes, I gather you're heading towards the centre. You need some people who've done things before. But do you need people who've done things before very badly? This is the greatest mystery about Mandelson, isn't it? Because he's always had and maintained this reputation as being this great PR spinner and this fantastic person who can work behind the scenes and achieve amazing things.
7:28All he's ever done is make people dislike him quite intensely and turn himself into a symbol of corrupt politics repeatedly.
7:34Helen Lewis:I think there is something quite attractive. and as a political journalist you have to be honest about it, about A, people who were really great sources and they've got a lot of really good gossip, but also people who absolutely love politics and love the game of politics. One of the problems, I was at the New Statesman during the Ed Miliband reign, and he patently disdained politics, it was sort of beneath him. Why is everybody just plotting always and briefing and oh, it's so terrible? And I think Starmer has that view too. So therefore it is, as a journalist, sort of more refreshing to spend time with people who absolutely love, like the George Osborne's, at Ed Balls, people who just...
8:07Gove.
8:08Helen Lewis:Gove. Michael Gove is a very good example. So I think from the point of view of journalists who work in those circles, not only are those people very good sources of information but like you, they enjoy the personal drama versus your kind of Gordon Browns, your Keir Starmers, who are trying to see themselves as aloof from it. I think the problem with that probably is that 99.9999 % of people in the country aren't political journalists and are actively repulsed, a bit like Ed Miliband And I think Keir Starmer by that sort of politics. So it doesn't really help anyone. There has been a slight change of line, I'd say, from Mandelson as this story has evolved.
8:44We should remember he was sacked in September after a previous batch of emails was released. He's issued an apology, and I'm quoting here, to the women and girls who suffered. His previous line when he was asked about this by the Financial Times was, it's an FT obsession and frankly you can all fuck off. That is a change of line. It is a change of line. PR genius, very good as Ben. But I suppose the question is, and I know the week is going to play out with whether these files are going to be released showing what was known when Mandelson was being vetted for the job, how the decision was made.
9:15The Peter files, if you like. Andy. Sorry. But his line, and I think this is very important, is that everybody else had said, how could I possibly know this? I didn't know Peter that well. This line was repeated by Peter Mandelson. How could he have known about Jeffrey Epstein? And he had no idea who he was. And at that point, even the dimmest of political journalists thinks, I'd better jump ship. I mean, there was a very funny piece about the Times' attitude. The Times were on a very pompous leader saying, who on earth thought that Mandel should be trusted and why? And then someone pointed out, well, you put him on your election podcast and you invited him in to talk to your journalists.
9:56The very brilliant Simon Childs writing. It is a bit of a point. You can't thunder when you've had this person on Times Radio, on your podcast. Why did you put him on? And if you say, I put him on because he's really interesting, he's got good gossip, you say, that's their line. What's your line? But the line is all the way up to Epstein is, I was lied to about this. So Mandelson says he was completely deceived by Epstein when he was visiting the island or the houses. He never saw any young girls there or anything like this. except there were two Swedish women there in one particular email so either he's blind or being homosexual deprives you of sight which is a new he knew nothing about it because he's gay so he wasn't involved in that sort of advice and then the email comes out of him talking about hey you're out of prison now we're celebrating some strippers called liberty modesty but also in the birthday book
10:53Helen Lewis:which came out last year there's pictures of him with women over age as far as we can tell but there's a line about how there was a man called Geoffrey who would turn up with some interesting friends. And the Epstein files are full of references like that to his harem, to you and your girl. So this is the thing. Mandelson's line is, I couldn't possibly have known, and you can judge for yourself how likely that is. But the line of the Labour team is, well, Mandelson lied to us when we were vetting him. He said that the relationship was over. But this isn't how vetting works. You don't say, are you in any way dodgy?
11:29They reply, no, of course I'm not. And then you say, thank you very much indeed. That's very kind of you. You say you have to ask other people as well? Or just read some papers. Can I just point out? Or indeed magazines. On that note, what might have been wise for everyone involved would be to read Private Eye. I mean, it's good advice for anyone at any time. But this is Slicker, writing on the 30th of March 2009. So this is very, very shortly after Peter Mandelson is brought back into the government by Gordon Brown to serve as Trade and Industry Secretary, but effectively sort of number two in the government.
11:58He was very much above sort of Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, in the packing order. Slicker writes, In uncertain times, government ministers need all the expert help they can get, which may explain the surely fanciful suggestion that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has been discussing with American money manager Jeffrey Epstein, the new Obama administration, and new powers on Wall Street. Last July, Epstein began serving an 18-month prison sentence in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting sex from underage girls as young as 14. Multimillionaire Epstein, also a friend of Prince Andrew and ex-President Clinton, has been on day release from the Palm Beach County Jail since October and so is available to meet and speak by telephone to friends.
12:35But it is surely too absurd to imagine that a British government minister would be talking to a jailbird, so these suggestions cannot be true. 30th March 2009. Wow.
12:45Helen Lewis:Was that a case of sort of lawyer-induced sarcasm? That's how I think of the tone of that. I mean, that can't possibly be happening. Very possibly. I mean, he followed up, Slicker followed up again a couple of years later. So this is 2011, which is when the Epstein story sort of starts to get slightly wider circulation. He points out that it's suggested Mandelson contacted Epstein while he was on day release from a Florida prison to see whether he could help smooth the way for the then business secretary to contact leading Wall Street banker Jamie Demon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, to discuss important financial matters, which is exactly the stuff that was coming out in the emails last week about Mandelson suggesting to Epstein that J.P.
13:23Morgan should mildly threaten Alistair Darling, the then-Chancellor, over the proposed banker's bonuses ban. Right. So it's all there. It's all there. It's all in the eye. As Helen says, it may not be the biggest scandal ever, but suggesting government policy should be shared and influenced by major paedophiles is probably a bit new, isn't it? I think in terms of how high it goes as well, I mean, we were saying literally he was pretty much second in command in the government. The Profumo affair, which this is being compared to, there wasn't even any accusation, I don't think, that Profumo had leaked anything via his various girlfriends.
13:57It was just the fact that he was sleeping with Christine Killian at the same time that she was sleeping with a Russian spy. I mean, in terms of actual leak stuff, it tended to be very sort of low-down people. Usually the Ministry of Defence was the kind of leakiest place, but it was sort of low-down civil servants. This was actually the second most powerful man in the country was quite prepared to discuss market-sensitive information, confidential documents, and share them with anyone, but share them effectively with an American paedophile, which does seem quite major. And the line that Andy establishes, that everyone lied to everyone, Peter Mandelson voluntarily handed over the information straight away and then lied to the Prime Minister.
14:36So it's not just passive. I suppose the thing I'm interested in is at what point does believing you're being lied to by someone who is a proven liar become culpable? I mean, it seems... The Cretan paradox. It's the Cretan paradox. It seems plausible that the only world leader to be brought down by the Epstein files is Keir Starmer, someone who, as far as I can tell, would absolutely never have consorted with anyone like Epstein, someone who seems pretty sort of square and He prosecuted quite a lot of people like him. Prosecuted people like this. I mean, human rights lawyer. This is extraordinary, isn't it?
15:17I know Donald Trump is named thousands of times in the files and apparently this just cuts no ice at all in the USA.
15:23Helen Lewis:I mean, I think you have to look at it in the context of the fact that quite a lot of the parliamentary Labour Party think that Keir Starmer is a lemon. The scandal is one thing in itself, but a bit like, you know, who really outside of nerds like us remembers the Chris Pincher scandal, right, in terms of doing for Boris Johnson? but it was finally the accumulation of a lot of people thinking we're better off without you than with you and so I think that's you have to see it as part of of that I know what you mean it does seem odd that so few consequences have been suffered by anybody in America a few people have lost you know some tv gigs and some administrative stuff in US universities that there has been some collateral damage but in terms of the political scandal the fact that Donald Trump fell out with Jeffrey Epstein in the 2000s before all these emails occur and the fact I suspect that this was a man who used to fax mean things to his enemies really quite later to the 90s.
16:14Helen Lewis:I'm not sure he'd ever really got to grips with email. It just means that actually Trump has sort of escaped this. But there's also the fact that he's elected president for a four-year term. There's really no way to get rid of him. So it's just not that live question in the way. And I felt like about a week ago there was just this kind of scent of blood in the air, essentially, from the lobby. And they just thought, hang on a minute, we've got him. and at that point it becomes it always becomes very unpleasant actually George Osborne and Ed Balls were talking about this in their podcast and George Osborne did this thing where he said you know I never like this bit when you see this sort of hunting pack mentality and I thought well I bet you shaved having been on the end of it a couple of times but then both of them ends up saying I was shocked by the bit where you would be in government and you would just press forward on your email from the treasury onto someone else I think that's the bit that even people who thought and in the case of George Osborne knew Mandelson quite well well actually Ed Balls in a sort of frenemy kind of way but I think people were genuinely shocked by that and I don't think that was fake shock I think that was real shock actually that it was worse even than they'd thought Are you saying we're not remotely surprised that he'd consort with a paedophile after conviction but this email forwarding thing is outrageous Yes, I mean genuinely yes on the basis that Lord Mandelson is always sort of delighted in this reputation of like the prince of darkness and whatever it might be behind and his lobbying firm had a group of people whose wikipedia pages have got very long controversies sections right like this is kind of this has always been his his shtick but i think that the word that kirstame used was betrayal and i think there are lots of people within the political class who do feel like that this is a betrayal this is so outrageous that you just wouldn't have comprehended that anybody would not know that this was just you should never do this i mean equally in terms of patterning on it You talk about his lobbying firm, his global council.
18:02I mean, absolutely secretive about what clients he was representing there. Well, still, right up until last week, serving as a member of the House of Lords, a member of Parliament, wasn't he, Ian? And he claimed that the rules did not apply to him as a peer, that he did not have to disclose who these clients were that his lobbying firm lobbied for. And as you would expect, everyone a wrong-un. The list is unbelievable. Sauron Technologies Limited.
18:28Helen Lewis:Emperor Palpatine. LLC. Yeah, absolutely. Nuclear South African tobacco. You name it, they're all in there. And it was, again, this is this old hiding in plain sight business. I don't know how many pieces Richard Brooks wrote for us about Mandy's lobbying firm. But it was this area between business and politics. I mean, that's described on their mission statement. and you think that's the area we don't want. We want politics and we want business. That's cool. It was helping clients see opportunities in politics. I mean, it's pretty blatant in terms of one of those opportunities in politics, of course, was he hosted a dinner for Palantir, Peter Thiel's company, with a load of NHS bosses just before they picked up an enormous NHS data contract in 2023.
19:20That was one of Richard's stories. Yes. There's an awful lot more of these as well. and the idea that this was a good person to have in charge of your American embassy. And again, I do not buy this argument that they all say, well, it was high risk, low something appointment. It was a very high risk, no possible benefit appointment. I mean, the diplomatic service is not short of people who can go in and suck up to foreigners. That is part of the job. You know, this isn't a new observation and you don't have to have Mandelson to do it. So you don't buy the we needed a swamp creature to be in the swamp line.
19:58Previous ambassador did a perfectly good job. Right. Why appoint a political appointee?
20:04Helen Lewis:I think that was one of the many things that has pissed off the PLP because that Karen Pierce was well liked, respected, seemed to be getting on with the job. There was no black marks against her record and they parachuted in Peter Mendelsohn essentially because he was a mate of Morgan McSweeney's. And I think that's maybe part of the rage that Keir Starmer's feeling is I think he feels he was sort of duped into this, but he's the one with his name, I was going to say his name above the door, unless his name's 10, that's not true. But ultimately he's the Prime Minister, so he is the ultimate decider.
20:35Helen Lewis:And the other thing it really spoke to was a sense that I've been hearing for, coming up for two years now, about the sense of a kind of little boys club clique in number 10. And, you know, there's lots of women working in number 10. Starmer's two new chiefs of staff, everyone's acting, are both women, for example. But there was a feeling that there was a kind of little group of people who just got this sort of stitched up in amongst themselves. And I think that's the Karen Pierce thing spoke to that is that particularly the women's PRP were like, hang on a minute, you've got rid of this very well qualified woman in order to put in a very dodgy man.
21:09Helen Lewis:There was a kind of what's what's that all? What's that all about, actually? Because there are no terms. It wasn't as if she was coming up to the end of a set term as the ambassador. You just get appointed and then. Yeah, I mean, it was it was you're right. The way that people defended it at the time was essentially that MAGA is horrifically corrupt. Why don't we send over someone who won't make them feel ill at ease? But, I mean, isn't the lesson of the past six months that sending people who are a bit straight into battle against Trump, like Mark Carney, works? And the people who stand up to him get results.
21:40The people who don't, our brilliant China deal. Not only have we got nothing at all, but Jimmy Lai goes to prison for 20 years. Oh, that was good. That's diplomacy working well. the whole premise of putting mandelson in is nonsense private eye does we should say feature in the epstein files doesn't it yes yes and it's not me on a plane um uh it's uh a story found by um robbie griffiths and adam about um a lawyer tell us about him paul tweed yes yeah who's been written about quite a lot in the eye he's a he's a um very keen on his job um defamation lawyer shall we say let's describe him that way and he was uh retained by epstein for a while although he's been very clear, like many people, to say this week that actually you knew nothing about him and didn't actually, you know, didn't stay with him for very long.
Read the full transcript
22:25He wouldn't take his legal advice. So he stopped representing him in 2011 after he'd come out of prison for the first time. But yes, he took great issue with the private eye cover that we were discussing, the Beatrice and Eugenie. It was about the time the first story, first of many, many stories, came out about Fergie taking money from Jeffrey Epstein, who she seems to have treated as a sort of cash machine, really, doesn't she? You'll know when she was in trouble, which was quite often, just kind of said, any suggestions? And he would wire her some money. But Paul Tweed took great offence at this cover and suggested to Epstein that it was a great affront and that legal action should be taken.
22:59Not, in fact, against us, but against Sarah Ferguson at the time, who we thought was damaging Jeffrey Epstein's reputation. And then the second mention was it was Peter Mandelstin who was sending an email to Jeffrey Epstein saying, I think you're going to need a good libel lawyer. Again, in reference to the private eye cover and the story that Fergie had herself released. So there is a sense in which revenge is being served as a very cold dish around here. But that's why we put in the briefs joke. Because you said, well, you suggested to Epstein he needed a lawyer. We reckon you're going to need a good lawyer.
23:45Saturday, September 26th, two of combat sports' most dangerous strikers collide. Bare Knuckle. Liverpool's own Darren the Gorilla Till goes to war with Cuban powerhouse Yoel Soldier of God Romero. Plus, the Bare Knuckle Middleweight Championship of the World is on the line when the reigning champ Dave the Redneck Mundell defends against undefeated British challenger Jack the Meek Pleaver Cullen. BKFC 94, Till vs. Romero. Watch it live only on DAZN. Sign up now at DAZN.com. Andy and Anna here from your new favourite podcast, No Such Thing as a Fish. Yes, we are two of the four hosts of the podcast that stuffs fascinating, amazing, weird, mad facts into your ears on a weekly basis.
24:32You got any good facts, Andy? Yes, how about this one? Anteaters have evolved on 12 separate occasions. Wow. Mysterious, wonderful. The world really wants them to exist. What about this one? When Ronald Reagan left office, he left a note on the White House lawn for the squirrels, warning them to beware of George Bush's dogs. So there you go. If you like fascinating facts and much more besides, we are no such thing as a fish. Right, we're going to be staying with this story because it seems to be quite a big one. Good insight, Andy. Thank you. That's new sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, all right, all right.
25:09we're going to be staying with this story before we do that there is one other seismic news story that I think we should cover which is that this podcast proudly lost in its category at last week's political podcast awards I didn't see you three at the event you were all busy but I got to go and hang out with George Osborne Ed Balls and others who won big I was just going to say all the people who knew Madelison very well won awards or have you got to have stayed on a yacht with him? What's the exact criterion? I just want to thank the judges of the whole competition who did a brilliant job. They were Anne Alexander, Liam Conlon MP, Greg Appointment MP, Steve Race MP, Tom Rutland MP, Baroness Anne Jenkins, Deborah Mattinson, Harry Quilterpinner and someone called Lord Ben Houchen who I don't think we realised was on the judging panel and we might have saved ourselves the email.
26:05how on earth should we not win Matt the producer and I just looked at each other and thought well we'll have a nice meal and we did
26:14Helen Lewis:he's got no style though because the cool thing to do in that situation would be to give the award to your enemy and a sort of like ha ha ha because he's won hasn't he in the sense of like we're talking about scandals that we private eye point out a lot and no one does anything about he could just be like ha ha maybe you can frame this next to your many reams of coverage about my dealings. Well, good point. Well, that's an idea for you next year, Ben. So, anyway, sorry, we should come back to the big winners of the night, George Osborne and his close personal, John Peter Mandelson, and the fallout from that story.
26:47Are there any stories that you think have not received the prominence they should have that came out in the last week, which have slightly been overwhelmed by political drama and, you know... What, stuff from the Epstein files? Stuff from the files, yeah. Okay, well, this I think is very important. This is a statement from the General Osteopathic Council, which seems to have otherwise gone unreported. It says, we are aware of media reports that the husband of Peter Mandelson, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, was in receipt of funds from Jeffrey Epstein to fund an osteopathy course in the UK in 2009. Reinaldo Avila da Silva did not graduate from an osteopathy course and has never been registered with the General Osteopathic Council.
27:20Therefore, he is not able to practice osteopathy in accordance with the law within the UK. If he's poised with his hands over your spine at this moment, get off that table. I mean that was one of the bizarre details because this was the point where Mandelson was still talking to the press and he said well I was just under the impression that this£10 ,000 that was given to his then partner now husband was a sort of bursary and that Geoffrey was just a very charitable guy who handed out these bursaries. If you're handing out charitable bursaries you probably don't give them to people who have recently stepped down as an extremely important cabinet minister and have quite a bit of cash already.
27:56No, there's probably some sort of means testing that goes on.
27:59Helen Lewis:Look, you just love spinal realignment, OK? A gunman has got to have a hobby. So we're having all this discussion about Keir Starmer as former director of public prosecutions. There's another former director of public prosecutions who I think has got some questions to answer, which is Ken MacDonald. So there's a very upsetting case of a Norwegian student who, back in the 2000s, was found raped and strangled, having left a club and got in a taxi with the son of a Yemeni billionaire. So her name is Martine Vic Magnusson and his name is Farouk Abdelhak. She was found two days later in the basement of his apartment block, by which time he had got on a plane to Cairo and thence to Yemen in his father's private jet.
28:38Helen Lewis:The Met decided there wasn't enough to charge, basically. I've been trying to get him back to Britain ever since. He confessed to the BBC that he said it was a sex game gone wrong, which is a defence that's often used in situations like this. But there are emails from the billionaire father to Jeffrey Epstein about a meeting that he had with Ken MacDonald, which says Ken MacDonald was paid£20 ,000 for for consultancy about how they might possibly facilitate the return of this kid to Britain and make this case. It was just a sex game gone wrong. Can I check this? This meeting proposed was after MacDonald's time as director of public prosecutions.
29:14Helen Lewis:He's working for Matrix Chambers at this point. So you can find it. Well, if you search for Matrix Chambers in the files. but it was arranged essentially. He said, you know, as a lawyer, you end up meeting lots of people with, you know, with checkered CVs. But nonetheless, I found this, you know, there's a reference to the fact that, you know, Ken McDonnell was helpful advising him because he'd be dealing with the current DPP. I.e. he'd be brokering the terms under which this kid would come back to Britain and face the music. And it's just, the thing that got to me about all of this, really horrible story about a poor dead woman who, you know, whatever happened, she's never coming back, there's a whole life that would have been lived there and at the end of one of the emails about this back and forth between the Yemeni billionaire and Epstein it ends after this discussion of what's going to happen with how was the Caribbean and it's like they're having this chit chat about how's life on your yacht in between the discussion about the death of this young woman and to me just really, I think a lot about that line that F.
30:14Helen Lewis:Scott Fitzgerald line at the end of Great Gatsby about they were careless people, they broke people and things and retreated back into their vast carelessness. And that, to me, is an example of it. You're discussing somebody that your son killed, whether he did that culpably or as an accident, and you're also just catching up with, how's the holiday going on? Was the weather nice? Did you get any good snorkelling in? It just seemed unbelievably callous to me. And as I say, Ken McDonald's made a statement about it, but I don't think that reflects very well on him, frankly. And this is just one of the things that you've noticed, the amount of stories in the files that are buried underneath there, because we're just doing the politics and who's up and who's down at the moment, it is incredible how much there probably is yet to go in these millions of files.
30:59Helen Lewis:The thing that's interesting about these files, whether or not you're looking at criminal wrongdoing in all these cases, and obviously you're not in all of them, you are looking about the... Here's a really grim insight into the way that this bit of the world works, essentially. Well, it's a claim that was made a lot by the MAGA movement, was that society was being run by elite paedophiles. It now doesn't look quite so absurd, unfortunately. I mean, they thought it was happening from a pizza parlour in Washington. That's where they went wrong. Yes, but... Apart from that, they were on the money.
31:27Yeah. Can I also say, you just find out things that would have been really helpful to know a long time ago. So in a casual exchange of emails, we find out that Ghislaine Maxwell derived her enormous wealth from some secret trust funds left to her by her father. Oh, good. So the public money in Britain, given because he'd stolen all the money from the pensioners, our money given to bail them out, could easily have been paid by Ghislaine Maxwell out of these secret trust funds. There weren't secret, her friends in New York, and everybody is the poorer. It was literally, it was£100 million, I checked,£100 million in compensation was paid by the government to the 32 ,000 former Mirror staff who had their pensions stolen by her dad.
32:13was obviously he was stashing this money away. Her total net worth in 2013 was apparently estimated by JP Morgan. It's them again. They're always in one of the files. £10 million. Yeah. So the idea was, I think, up until now, that that was the attraction of Epstein for her, wasn't it? That he was funding her all the way. But no, turns out... Yes, and it was this poor, sad family, the two brothers of whom obviously took me to court for contempt of court during the process, and I have no beef about that. But for younger listeners to the podcast, Maxwell did sue Private Eye, Robert Maxwell sued us, on the grounds that we said he was stealing from his own pension fund.
32:51And then he died. But not before he'd stashed enough away for her not to have to live with the world's most famous paedophile. I mean, it is completely... Just as a note for Peter Mandelton, if you're listening, that's how you declare interests. Yeah, that's how you say what you... There is an online phrase that punish the villains is actually quite a good electoral mantra. You know, it's quite a powerful saying. Let's just, should we punish the villains? It's a good idea. You know, it doesn't seem to be...
33:19Helen Lewis:Dominic Cummings' mantra was fund the NHS, hang the pedos. Right. Which also, actually, probably in this case would be extremely popular with people. One of the things that's interesting about the opposition parties, though, is I think they're quite keen to have the focus stay on Mandelson because then it's just purely a Labour scandal. And I'm not sure it is purely a Labour scandal. So there's an appearance by the reformed treasurer and Nick Candy. Is there not in the files? Yes, there is. I mean, again, one of these casual references that turned up in the files, and Nick Candy says that he and his brother bought this building.
33:53Not just any building, we should say. Is this one Hyde Park? This is indeed one Hyde Park, but that was the subject of an appearance in court by Nick Candy in which he said he didn't buy it with his brother. His brother bought it. and it was wrong to say that he'd bought it because he just provided various services, which is a bit awkward. He was the interior decorator, wasn't he? He was. And that had great implications for the tax that they paid or didn't pay. It did. And, I mean, who's to know? Is this email in the Epstein files right or is what he said in court under oath right? I mean, don't look at me.
34:30I have no eye for these things. I do think there's a bit of a principle in political life that when Nigel Farage is even slightly quiet for half an hour, you should look extremely carefully at what he's being quiet about because he has made a fair few points about this, but he has kept a little bit quiet because his chief money man is now involved in this too.
34:50Helen Lewis:Yeah, I mean, relatively tangentially, but I think the other thing for his point of view is that Donald Trump doesn't like a lot of focus on this and he's very keen to preserve that relationship too. Why is that? Why could that be? Who could possibly say? The author of the quote in New York magazine, Jeffrey likes a lot of women and he likes them on the young side. Another person who simply didn't know what was going on. No idea. Just no idea at all. Oh, I feel ill. I feel iller than a lot of the correspondents who wrote into the letters page of the I this week saying that cover made me feel sick to my stomach.
35:20You redacted the wrong bit when you covered up Nitty's face. Yes, no, and a lot of people said it put me off by breakfast. Some of our less busy readers said it put me off by lunch. I think we may be near an apology for that cover to underpants
35:40Helen Lewis:to the concept of underpants in general the only people to pay consequences is going to be you and Keir Starmer it's a funny old world isn't it Saturday September 26th two of combat sports most dangerous strikers collide bare knuckle Liverpool's own Darren the Gorilla Till goes to war with Cuban powerhouse Yoel Soldier of God Romero Plus the bare knuckle middleweight championship of the world is on the line. When the reigning champ Dave the Redneck Mundell defends against undefeated British challenger Jack the Meek Cleaver Cullen. BKFC 94. Till vs. Romero. Watch it live only on DAZN. Sign up now at DAZN.com.
36:22Andy and Anna here from your new favorite podcast, No Such Thing as a Fish. Yes, we are two of the four hosts of the podcast that stuffs fascinating, amazing, weird, mad facts into your ears on a weekly basis.
36:37Helen Lewis:You got any good facts, Andy? Yes. How about this one? Anteaters have evolved on 12 separate occasions. Wow. Mysterious. Wonderful. The world really wants them to exist. What about this one? When Ronald Reagan left office, he left a note on the White House lawn for the squirrels, warning them to beware of George Bush's dogs. So there you go. If you like fascinating facts and much more besides, we are no such thing as a fish. So those are some of the side cases that haven't received maybe the attention that they deserve. Maybe we should now come back to the... I'm afraid you said, you know, it's all about who's up, who's down.
37:12But it does have big political effects, this story. you know there's a huge hunt on at the moment for anyone who thought appointing mandelson was a good idea because they mysteriously they've all remembered that actually they thought this was a terrible idea all along um it's the least subtle of which i thought was david lammy who
37:28Helen Lewis:david lammy was always against this say sources close to david lammy over the weekend it's that sources close to david lammy got that out there yeah took the time but if this does and again we're recording this before i think probably 24 hours of quite february news before you hear it But if this does lead to the sense that Keir Starmer, you know, his position is untenable, then there are all sorts of people wondering who might be next. But there seem to be all sorts of problems with everyone else as well. The problem is, so Angela Rayner, bastion of the soft left, now in the bin on the back benches, you know, which has given her a lot of time to network, has still got the tax investigation, her second home declaration hanging over her.
38:07Helen Lewis:So, you know, that might put a pause on some people. some people want Ed Miliband back and that's because they were apparently asleep during the period 2010 to 2015 A proven vote loser is what we need now I will say he was right on Mandelson when he was asked about it in 2010 he said I think it's important to preserve the concept of dignity in retirement and I think that was one of the few sensible things that has been said about Mandelson I was hoping he said dignitas in retirement No, that would have been extreme No, I mean Ed Miliband has had a renaissance an ednaissance if you will in that climate change brief, but I don't think there are that many people who remember his time as leader of the Labour Party with fond affection.
38:44I don't think he does. I don't think he does. No, he hated it.
38:46Helen Lewis:He said everyone just kept going on about how he'd stabbed his brother in the back. And the problem with that was he had stabbed his brother in the back and it was entirely fair to go on about it. And then Wes Streeting, who's seen as the kind of great hope of the Labour right, whatever you might call it, is friends, has long time been friends with... Peter's friends. Much, much more connected with Peter Mendelsohn than Starmer was ever personally, isn't he? Yeah, his partner Joe Dancy worked for mandelson at one point there was a suggestion in the times that they were on mandelson's stag do which is a concept i would like to investigate more at greater length because i wonder what that involved now sort of heady mixture of strippers and leaking fiscal briefings in a limo on the brighton seafront stript him with trousers put him on the cover of private happen to anyone so there is yeah that's that's the kind of the holding pattern really is that but it's not perfect timing for any of the other people to move.
39:36Helen Lewis:Andy Burnham obviously denied his ability to run in the Gorton by-election, so it has at the moment no route to becoming Labour leader, unless he could get Keir Starmer to very quickly ennoble him and do it from the Lords, but that's probably not going to happen. Well, there will be a seat going begging, won't there? That's true, there's a red bench. There's an ermine free after Lord Manson gave up. But the vetting will now take much, much longer because they'll have to take that much more seriously, so it might be quite difficult to turn around in time. Can I come back to my point with West Streeting, which I keep hanging on back because everyone else seems to forget he's got a majority of 528 in Ilford.
40:08I mean, there's a really, really strong possibility that at the next general election he will be out. What happens if you are the leader and then the prime minister and then you lose your seat? I know it never happens. Has it ever happened? You can't be promised. Well, the last person that got close to happening was Jo Swinson. Does anyone remember her? Lib Dem leader in the 2017 election, was this? Yeah. She went out in one
40:27Helen Lewis:and then back in again in another, yes. Yeah, yeah. So she was out as leader, you know, of that morning. If your party has got the majority, which would be quite questionable at the moment for Labour, and your leader loses their seat, then you've got a bit of a problem. I know I'm a broken record on this, but I don't know there really are that many safe seats anymore. If you look at Joe Swinson being a very good example, that SNP post-Indy referendum 2015 tidal wave of yellow was extraordinary. Kirk Coddy used to be the safest seat, Gordon Brown's old seat, safest seat, and that went to SNP. You know, just the swings were vast.
41:00Helen Lewis:And I think that that same thing could happen at the next election. I don't know anyone whose seat looks, you know, nailed on, essentially. Farage? I mean, the thing is, it will be trending in his direction, right? That's the thing. Maybe I should modify that and say any Labour MP with a majority under 20 ,000 should be thinking, should put a bit of a shift in at the constituency surgery. Is there no holding candidate? is it? There's in the sort of, like, the kind of when they have a Pope and they pick a really old one. And then they just go, well, give us another six months and we'll have a think about this.
41:33Helen Lewis:You can tell that things are happening because there was a very brief moment of excitement where someone seems to have briefed a lot of lobby reporters. Maybe it'll be Al Karnes. Now, who is? I know the first question on your lips, which is... Who is? Who is Al Karnes? Think of him very much as Labour's Mel Stride. Brilliant. He's not Labour's Mel Stride. And who's Mel Stride? Shelley Chancellor. Thank you. Of course. He's financial spice. I fear that Al Cairns might have had one drink with a journalist in which he went, well, you know, if the ball came loose from the back of the scrum and this has become a very brief, you know, Carnes mania.
42:09Helen Lewis:But we'll see. Maybe by the time we finish recording this podcast, he'll be our Prime Minister. Right. The joke will be on me. The thing I think will happen is that the party will snap back very much like Lord Mandelson's knicker elastic to its default state, which is kind of soft left. So that's where... As in comfort zone stuff? Yeah, but that's where the gravity of the PLP is. So Shabana Mahmood has put through immigration reforms that are probably broadly popular with the country at large, very unpopular with the MPs, very unpopular with the membership. The composition of the membership has changed since 2020 because quite a lot of them have left to join the Greens for a start.
42:47Helen Lewis:But it's still in where you'd expect to be socially liberal, pro-European. So Wiz Streeting, for example, has been talking up his pro-European credentials because he knows in other respects on sort of cultural issues, he's more in the hated Blairite zone. You know, whereas Angela Rayner is, for example, has extremely strong links with trade unions, which are traditionally a very good thing when one is standing for the Labour leadership. But there's, you know, there's sort of something for all of those involved, this is not the ideal time for them to move, essentially. And so, yeah, I I think even as late as last week, the suspicion had been that something would happen after the May local elections.
43:27Helen Lewis:And that's why Anasawa has put that distance, because he is facing the SNP in what is expected to be a pretty brutal battle up in Scotland. And he wants to put a bit of distance from himself in the way that Douglas Ross distanced himself from the unpopular Boris Johnson in England. You know, that's always been ever since the rouse, actually to go back to the Miliband era about whether or not the Scottish Labour leader is the kind of leader of a branch office or a fully fledged leader in their own right. It has been a really difficult thing when the party in power, like the centre, the Westminster leader of Labour is unpopular.
44:00Helen Lewis:What do you do as the regional leaders? And the Welsh Labour will be having exactly that discussion, too, because, again, they're expecting to lose their majority in the Senate for the first time. you know, there won't be the biggest party in Wales for the first time since devolution. So there's big incentives for people in the regions and nations to kind of, in the same way that there is for Andy Burnham, to say, actually, I'm getting off this sinking ship. And I guess there's big incentives as well for people kind of nationally who are possible contenders for the prime ministership to kind of not want to take on when that's going to be your immediate thing.
44:35It's a very difficult by-election up in Manchester and then those local election results. It's kind of like, yeah, no, Keir, you have those. and then that's a much better point at which to come in in a very cynical way isn't it?
44:44Helen Lewis:Yeah and also one thing that has plagued the Starmer administration is the perceived and indeed actual lack of a plan. You know the very panicky winter fuel allowance oh no we're not pit reform oh no we're not you know no we're not going to raise taxes okay we'll get through these sneaky ones instead. That actually which of the other candidates has got a kind of have they already got in place a fully formed like what do they think the problems are with Britain and how would they solve them and how would they get the rest of the parliamentary Labour Party to vote for those solutions. Luke Trill does a lot from More In Common.
45:17Helen Lewis:He does a lot of focus group polling and he said the emotion he sees now is not apathy but nihilism. People just think everything is screwed and they don't think anyone can fix it. And I think that is also a bit of an inhibition on some of the candidates too. And that's what your initial point is. Why this scandal may have bigger repercussions than it should have is because people feel so badly about politicians and this plays into the narrative. Well, look, look at that. It couldn't get worse than that, could it? What we all believed is true. None of them are any good. Yeah, what does Britain's future look like?
45:51Helen Lewis:I'm off to California next week and say what you like about California. It's a good. It's not always bloody raining and actually people are excited about the future. You know, there's a sense that things are actually changing and the world is improving. and there's, you know, yes, they're all on mad peptides and, you know, sort of worrying about the Antichrist, but at least that's quite a classy problem to have, the Antichrist. Our problem is, like, chronic low productivity and a welfare dependency ratio that's really troublesome. So I think that's, you know, I just think there is that pervasive sense of sort of doom.
46:27Which I refuse to share. We've reached our traditional cheerful point to end on, so I think we should wrap it up there. Yeah, sorry.
46:34Helen Lewis:it's alright for me I'll be in California well that's it for this episode of page 94 thank you so much for listening we'll be back again in a fortnight with another one in the meantime Private Eye is available on newsstands but if you don't want people to see you carrying around a picture of Peter Mandelson in his Y fronts you can get a subscription which is delivered to you I know because I've got one in a plain envelope hide your shame for very very reasonable prices private hyphen i.co.uk uh it's all there um until then thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time and thanks as always to matt hill of rethink audio for producing bye for now saturday september 26th two of combat sports most dangerous strikers collide bare knuckle liverpool's own darren the gorilla till goes to war with cuban powerhouse Joel Soldier of God Romero.
47:29Plus the bare knuckle middleweight championship of the world is on the line. When the reigning champ Dave the Redneck Mundell defends against undefeated British challenger Jack the Meek Cleaver Colon. BKFC 94. Till vs. Romero. Watch it live only on DAZN. Sign up now at DAZN.com. Andy and Anna here from your new favourite podcast, No Such Thing as a Fish. Yes, we are. two of the four hosts of the podcast that stuffs fascinating, amazing, weird, mad facts into your ears on a weekly basis. You got any good facts, Andy? Yes. How about this one? Anteaters have evolved on 12 separate occasions. Wow.
48:12Mysterious. Wonderful. The world really wants them to exist. What about this one? When Ronald Reagan left office, he left a note on the White House lawn for the squirrels, warning them to beware of George Bush's dogs. So there you go. If you like fascinating facts and much more besides, we are No Such Thing As A Fish. Saturday, September 26th, two of combat sports' most dangerous strikers collide. Bare Knuckle. Liverpool's own Darren the Gorilla Till goes to war with Cuban powerhouse Yoel Soldier of God Romero. Plus the Bare Knuckle Middleweight Championship of the World is on the line when the reigning champ Dave the Redneck Mundell defends against undefeated British challenger Jack the Meek Cleaver Colon BKFC 94 Till vs.
48:54Romero Watch it live only on DAZN Sign up now at DAZN.com
