Mandelson's web of Epstein lies could bring down Starmer

0:27The Telegraph Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Camilla Tominy.

0:43Now we have three pieces of breaking news for you. One, Peter Mandelson has resigned as a member of the House of Lords. Two, number 10 has reported Peter Mandelson to the police. and three, an anti-monarchy group has reported Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to the police over sex trafficking. We're going to talk about the tangled web of deceit that has brought us to this moment and also does it threaten to consume Keir Starmer? Dr Stanley, this is you in full academic professorial role. This must have been what you were like at school and university. You're holding a whiteboard. Are you going to Timsplain something to me?

1:23What's going on here? This is a spider graph. Have you ever seen It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? No. Oh, you should do. It's the funniest thing ever made. There's a character called Charlie who goes a bit mad and sees conspiracies anywhere, and he covers his walls in bits of paper and string to prove how things connect. And I want to talk through the jabronis, as they would say in Always Sunny, associated with Peter Mandelson. Yes. Can we use the word conspiracy? I'm not sure. I think, well, conspiracy, cover up. In a legal sense, but in the cultural shady, they're all in it together sense.

1:57Yes. And the thing with the conspiracy is you can't call it one until lots of details have come out because if you call it too soon, you sound mad. But what I want to do is run through what we now know, how these different people connect and how Peter Mandelson could end up bringing down the house of labour. This is amazing. You've got little laminated pictures of all of the key protagonists. I did not make these. Our brilliant production team made these. I'm going to begin by putting on the whiteboard the face of this man, who you know who that is, that's Jeffrey Epstein. That's his mugshot I believe.

2:27That's his mugshot. This is Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted paedophile and financier, or whatever it was he did with money. Very, very rich man. And around the year 2002, from what we can make out, he becomes very good friends, indeed best pal, with this man, Peter Mandelson. Also known as Petey. Right, also known as Petey in their email exchanges. Now, we cannot overemphasize how important Peter Mandelson is to the British left. He is one of the people who invented new labor. Yes. He served three times as a minister in the new labor governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, resigning twice in disgrace over issues linked to money.

3:08And Mandy, you can see why he gets on with Epstein. And he did an interview recently talking about Epstein as a sociopath. And Mandy insists that he was drawn to people like that, not because of their money, but because of their world view, their connections, their ability to see the connections between things. But actually, there are some similarities in personality. These are men who are attracted to money, are attracted to rich and powerful people, and they're known internationally as fixers. Yes. Jeff was someone who you'd speak to if he wanted to get a deal done in the Middle East. Exactly.

3:38Mandy was someone you'd speak to if he wanted to get something done in Britain. So there's a sort of a natural affinity between the two people. Also, can I just say that the email exchanges reveal that they both weren't very good at punctuation, spelling or grammar. Oh, they think too fast to bother with things like full stops and capital letters. They're both also huge fans of innuendo and a degree of saucy bants. And I'd also like to point out that that photograph that you have of Peter Mandelson there shows him in a Jeffrey Epstein em… Branded sweatshirt. Emblanded sweatshirt, which he was wearing in 2009.

4:10That is a year after. after the conviction for paedophilia and sex trafficking of Jeffrey Epstein, which raises the question, why did Jeffrey Epstein produce his own branded sweatshirts and why did Peter Mandelson wear them? Great. Anyway, Mandy likes money. And we know that Mandy, after he left government in 2010 because Labour lost power, is looking for a job. And he spoke to Epstein about how do I get a job. And money is a feature in their relationship. For example, Epstein once gave Mandy's husband, at the time partner, Ronaldo da Silva, who I'm putting up a photo of him. Very his. Just to describe him.

4:47Good looking. Very good looking young man. Dark head chap in a yellow jumper. Today looks a bit more like Paul Burrell, but we all age. Wow. And he gave Mandy and Ronaldo$10 ,000 towards an osteopath course. We know that over the course of their friendship, Epstein wired Mandy around$75 ,000. Although Mandy says he can't remember receiving the money. He has no recollection. Don't worry, all legal clarifications will come later on. And also allegedly that he paid for some commercial flights for him. So there's a financial element to their relationship and that's very important. When Epstein was convicted of pedophilia in 2008, Peter Mandelson privately stood by him.

5:28Because he says Jeffrey Epstein lied to him about the nature of that conviction. Nonetheless, he stood by him. And in 2008, that same year, Peter Mandelson returned to Labour government under one Gordon Brown and was placed into the House of Lords. He brought Mandelson back in because of the global financial crisis. At the height of the credit crunch, yes. And bear in mind that Epstein works in finance. And he had to give him a peerage because by that point he didn't have a seat. He wasn't a sitting MP. So the peerage was given so that he could be a cabinet member via the House of Lords. Now, the appointment of Peter Manilson by Gordon Brown took us all by surprise, because Gordon's a proper socialist.

6:11Yeah. And he is not. No. Inventor of New Labour. He's very happy with people being filthy rich, he famously said. Of course. And there was a sense that Gordon brought him back because he kind of had to because Mandy's connections, but also he could heal the rift with Tony Blair and New Labour. And so Mandy comes in. He has a very sensitive and important job. But it was weird just because Gordon Brown always resented Peter Mandelson for not backing him as Labour leader and indeed future Prime Minister in 1994 and instead favouring Blair. So they have beef but again it kind of speaks to that idea that there are successive Labour Prime Ministers who think they can't live without They can't function without Peter the fixer.

6:51He's indispensable to your party. Now, we know that Mandelson repaid that loyalty by feeding market-critical information, market-sensitive information back to Jeffrey Epstein. This is very important because this is what people say could be illegal. We know that he leaked to him minutes of conversations, including, for instance, with Larry Summers, who was head of finance in the United States at the time. Good friend of Tony Blair. We know that he gave him copies of economic advice being passed to the Prime Minister. And we know, and this is truly extraordinary, that he gave Epstein advance notice of a bailout to save the euro.

7:32Yes, that's significant because Jeffrey Epstein is a financier and he has got lots of fingers in lots of pies. and he's got lots of clients that actually could do with getting advance notice of extraordinary, incredible and influential decisions that might be made at UK government level. This is a banking crisis. The debate within government is how do we bail out the banks but also should we tax them? Should we punish them for what they did? We now know thanks to the Epstein files that in 2009 Mandelson appeared to suggest that the boss of J.P. Morgan should, quote, mildly threaten the Chancellor over a banker's bonus tax.

8:12And it should be stated that Alastair Darling, now deceased, was renowned for being straight as an arrow, extremely respectable, and certainly not someone that would be susceptible to any of these sorts of tactics. Yes, yes, absolutely. Nonetheless, the Labour Party loses the 2010 election. Mandelson was personally involved in negotiations to try to set up a coalition with the Lib Dems, but it wasn't going to happen. And Gordon Brown lost his job. And we now know again that Mandy passed on advance notice to Epstein of Gordon Brown leaving office, saying, quote, finally got him to go today. Extraordinary.

8:53Extraordinary. Now by the early 2010s of course, Epstein's various scandals have become public knowledge. We know what this man is like. We know finally that he is linked to Prince Andrew, who I'm adding to the board. There is Andrew formerly known as Prince. Andrew, Mountbatten, Windsor. And this is also the era of Corbyn, and the Labour Party shifts dramatically to the left. And that's not good for people like Peter Mandelson. Peter Mandelson is now suddenly irrelevant in the world of the British left. So he starts to plot a comeback and a critical part in his comeback I'll add Tony Blair to the board because it's important always to have Tony on the board because he's watching us all the time Peter Mandelson is in contact with this man called Morgan McSweeney.

9:33Oh, there he is. Morgan McSweeney is going to become the chief of staff to Keir Starmer and his new government. And McSweeney's whole project is purge the socialists, blue Labour, drag the Labour Party back to the centre ground. Yes. You and I may not feel Labour's that moderate, but that's how it's perceived within Labour circles. It is said that Mandelson and McSweeney are so close that the two men at one point were speaking every single day. Wow. 2024, Keir Starmer appoints, as I say, Morgan McSweeney as his chief of staff. With Keir in number 10, we need a new ambassador to the United States.

10:09Morgan McSweeney recommends his best pal, Peter Mandelson, for the job. Who knows a few Americans. He does. Mandelson has to undergo some sort of security vetting. It is now a consensus that the vetting was insufficient. Yes. And also... The vetting may well have just been, Peter, would you like this job? Yes, yes please. Very much so. And also an interesting question was asked in the House of Commons on Monday by one Richard Bergen, Socialist Labour MP, and that's significant. Corbyn's bestie. Who asked if the people vetting Peter Mandelson had themselves been properly vetted. So in other words there are questions being raised about just how serious number 10 is about security vetting.

10:57Nonetheless, Mandelson gets the job, goes to the United States, does pretty well actually, very popular. But then of course further details emerge about his friendship. Best pal, yum-yum, all that stuff comes out. This all comes out in that 50th birthday book that is released to the public. So around seven months into his tenure, trying to cosy up to Donald Trump, be the Trump whisperer along with Starmer, he comes unstuck. At this point, the murd hits the fan. Oui. And everyone's saying Mandelson must go. We know of one person in number 10 who was defending him. Morgan McSweeney. Yes. Not only recommended him for the ambassadorship, but fought against Mandelson being withdrawn from the ambassadorship.

11:42To give you a sense of their relationship, Peter Mandelson once said of Morgan McSweeney, quote, I don't know who and how and when he was invented, but whoever it was, they will find their place in heaven. Wow. There seems to be a little bit of an infatuation going on there. But one person is watching this and sees the opportunity for revenge. Gordon Brown. And he's looking scary there, let's be honest. Gordon has said the following, quote, On September 10th last year, I wrote to the Cabinet Secretary to ask him to investigate the veracity of information contained in the Epstein papers about the sale of assets, R, arising from the banking collapse and communications about them between R, Lord Mandelson and Mr.

12:28Epstein. Yes. For those who don't remember, he always used to say R. He did. Oh, this is the very day. The same day that his successor... His successor, Keir Starmer, stands up in the House of Commons and says this. Mr Speaker, let me start by saying the victims of Epstein are the forefront of our minds. He was a despicable criminal who committed the most heinous crimes and destroyed the lives of so many women and girls. The ambassador has repeatedly expressed his deep regret for his association with him. He's right to do so. I have confidence in him and he's playing an important role in the UK-US relationship.

13:06One day later, he was sacked. And in that intervening 24 hours, we had a number of people coming out and justifying the Prime Minister's support of Peter Mandelson, including Mandelson's successor as Business Secretary, Peter Kyle, who, it's worth noting, said at the time that although the vetting process had turned up links to Epstein, the Labour grandees' singular talents meant they felt it was worth the risk. Singular talents. Peter Manlesson loses his job. But he is not disgraced, he does not lose his peerage, and he is not kicked out of the Labour Party. That only happens as a result of the recent revelation of three million Epstein documents, which include all of the stuff that I've just discussed about potential leaking of confidential information to Epstein.

13:59And it includes that extraordinary image of him in his Y-fronts. In his Y-fronts. At one of Epstein's properties. The Labour Party began, finally, disciplinary action to remove Mandelson from Labour, but Mandelson resigned before they could kick him out. So that makes Starmer look weak. In frustration, two political parties have finally called in this man, not him personally. Oh but look it's Peter Blexley. You're nicked! But we've chosen him, a favourite of the Daily Tea, to represent the police. The plot, indeed. Because given everything we've discussed, one might ask, are there not good grounds to open a criminal investigation against Peter Maddelson?

14:42I asked Nigel Farage about this at a press conference he gave this afternoon about reforms plans to save the pub. At that moment, it had just been announced that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had been reported by this anti-monarchy group to the police. And I also asked him about Mandelson. First question, picking up on what you said about all the warnings were there with Mandelson. You know, he'd been in government twice before and sacked, still hired by Gordon Brown, still then hired by Keir Starmer. How do you account for Peter Mandelson constantly returning to Labour and working for it? How can you explain the strange appeal of this man?

15:18And second question, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has just been reported to the police for alleged sex trafficking. Do you think that's an appropriate course of action? I think for the royal family, what started off as an embarrassment is rapidly turning into a disaster. And perhaps it's the biggest scandal to engulf the royals since 1936. Very, very serious. Look, the only answer I can give you to your specific question is if that is valid, if there is genuine justification for making that complaint and it's not vexatious, there is no reason why his treatment by the law should not be exactly the same as all the rest of us.

16:04And I think the country would agree with that absolutely overwhelmingly. But yes, I mean, the king has acted relatively quickly on all of this and thank goodness, frankly, that he did. as to whether much more is going to come out. I mean, just who knows. Mandelson, what's the appeal? How is it that he sort of says, look into my eyes, look into my eyes, I want to be back in the Cabinet, I want to be ambassador? He's very articulate. He's highly intelligent. He's incredibly well briefed. Probably the best networker in Westminster in the last 30 years. There isn't a telephone number of notes that somehow isn't on Mandy's list.

16:46And I think he's able, when he talks to people, to give them the impression that he knows more about what's happening in the world, more about any particular subject than perhaps anybody else they can appoint. And the funny thing is, it's not all a con job. It's not all bull. He genuinely is incredibly well-briefed. I mean, I watched him as trade commissioner. And yes, he was on Deripaska's yacht, but the actual subject, the brief, even at his hearing, I'd never heard anybody as impressive in all my 20 years in the European Parliament. The guy is very, very bright, but clearly has a taste for money and has a taste for bad company.

17:28So, yeah, there is this sort of almost bewitching appeal. But, you know, you can forgive a friend, you can forgive a family member, you can forgive a party colleague one big mistake in their lives, And we all do it. And actually, in the spirit of Christian forgiveness, we should do it. But if we start trusting repeat offenders, they're not the idiots we are. In normal circumstances, political figures caught up in such scandals usually just lie low. They don't give interviews. They just stay in the background and wait for things to happen. Not Peter Mandelson, who, let's be honest, has always been firmly in control of his own PR.

18:08Yes. He's given another interview. I say another. He had spoken to Laura Koonsberg of the BBC about this quite extensively. Now he's spoken to Katie Balls of the Sunday Times and he said this. Hiding under a rock would be a disproportionate response to a handful of misguided historical emails, which I deeply regret sending. If it hadn't been for the emails, I'd still be in Washington. Emails sent all those years ago didn't change the relationship I had with this monster. I feel the same about the recent download of Epstein files, none of which indicate wrongdoing or misdemeanour on my part. And he also posed for photographs with the Times in the style of a lifestyle issue, in one wearing a rather nice pink woolly jumper.

18:59But the point is here as well is that some of this interview with Katie Bowles has been conducted before the two Eiffel Towers worth of documents have been revealed over in the States. But second of all, in a way, he's got a point, right? He has not yet been found guilty in a court of law of anything. No. He is rewriting his relationship with this, quote, monster, although we can tell from the affectionate tone of emails sent even after he was convicted that he did not question the nature of that relationship or dilute its closeness seemingly at all. As we see from your whiteboard, he is wearing Jeffrey Epstein's branded jumper in 2009, post Epstein conviction.

19:50So I'm not sure quite how this washes. Also, I'm going to put my whiteboard down. The story that we have told, interestingly, is not about sex. The Andrew story is really about sex. And we'll get on to that in a minute. Allegedly. Yes. But the Mandelson story is about money and political influence. On the money front, Peter Mandelson's argument that I don't recall these sums of money is going to strike people as odd because they're very big sums of money. Yeah. So either you should be able to say that's not true because I would remember receiving$75 ,000 or else you're so rich that you don't recall if you've received$75 ,000.

20:30There was a subsequent email where he's bragging about the fact that he's got this position for a million dollars a year. Right. So maybe there is that. But then you would also counter argue if you're that obsessed by money. I mean, usually the thing about the rich is they really do know how much money they've got, where they're receiving it and how much tax they're paying on it. So again, that seems confusing to me that you wouldn't know, regardless of whether you were completely minted, that you hadn't been given 75 grand. But Camilla, you mentioned the job he was looking at. I assume that is the Deutsche Bank job he was interested in, which was going to pay$1 million plus bonuses of between$3 and$5 million.

21:08We're in the wrong business. We're in the wrong job, aren't we? This man was business secretary during a banking crisis discussing the regulation of banks. Yes. He is best friends with a financier who happens to be a convicted paedophile as well. But also he is sharing with him market sensitive information. And upon leaving office, he is discussing with him how he can go about getting a job in banks. And he is sharing that information as business secretary to a socialist Labour prime minister. Yes. who had used the phrase global financial crisis to explain away all of Labour's woes at that point and was presenting himself, and I think genuinely, but this was the image of Labour and this is what was going on in the background with Mandelson, presenting himself as a politician of the people who wanted Britain to get through this extraordinarily difficult period where people were losing their homes and debt was skyrocketing because he was a man of the people.

22:14And I think that juxtaposition does need to be clearly stated because this is a Labour socialist government designed to help the working man and woman. And meanwhile, you have a key and central figure that is frankly behaving in the completely opposite way and is now still able to clock in and out of the House of Lords for£371 a day. I think in defense of Gordon Brown, if you take the economic advice that he was received, that Mandy allegedly leaked to Epstein, what that advice actually says is in and of itself interesting. It says the problem during the credit crunch era was not government spending or personal spending.

22:56It was trying to get businesses to invest. So one reason why Mandelson was hired was because of all these contacts, because he was friendly with bankers, because they wanted a business secretary who could try to persuade people to reinvest in the country. I know, but it was also down to the chicanery and the dishonesty with regard to buying up debt and negative equity and all the rest of it of precisely the kind of people that Epstein and Mandelson were networking with and enabling in the background. But this is why this is politically significant, because we currently have a Labour government with a massive majority.

23:31So our country is essentially held hostage by this party. And how this party responds to this scandal, what it does with Morgan McSweeney and possibly Keir Starmer is very important. Now, the left of the parliamentary party believes the reason why the credit crunch happened is because Britain was too cozy with bankers. And it believes the reason why we've not had proper socialism since is because our party is captured by bankers. And for them, this scandal proves this was all correct. And the man they place so much blame upon is Morgan McSweeney, who they say forced out Corbyn. I mean, why is Corbyn expelled from the Labour Party and Peter Mannison is left to resign?

24:12Well, anti-Semitism is the answer to that, but that tends to get forgotten. Nonetheless, they're saying it is this man's capture of the party and his creature, Keir Starmer, that prevents Labour from doing really socialist things that could help people in this country, like a wealth tax. Now, you and I might disagree with that analysis, but the important thing is that's what the left thinks. The left feels they have been vindicated by the Mandelson scandal and they are coming after Morgan McSweeney. And if McSweeney goes, which is likely people think to happen after the May elections when Labour is going to receive a drubbing, even worse now after this story, then even if Keir Starmer clings on, it won't be his government anymore.

24:51It will drift to the left because only the left is ready to step in with an alternative manifesto. Okay, so therefore by association to conclude the figures who have been strengthened by this entire scandal as we continue to discuss Keir Starmer's future and a future leader are Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham. Because as Blairism and being comfortable with people being filthy rich and leaning into blue Labour has been exposed for the scam that it is, there's only now a direction of travel for the Labour Party, parliamentary membership and onwards in a leftwards direction. Peter Mandelson was extremely comfortable with the company of a rich and filthy man.

25:40Let's put it that way. Yes. And the backbenchers see that as an indictment of Blairism. And it's striking the people who have been quoted today attacking the government, demanding McSweeney goes, calling Mandelson a monster. They're people like Rachel Maskell, Emily Thornberry, representatives of the soft left. There is one other person who might come out of this stronger. And that's on the other side of the dispatch box. Kemi Badenock. Kemi Badenock. Because comparatively, we've got the Labour Party now completely mired in scandal. And reform is slightly tainted by the sympathy for Russia brush.

26:16So actually, in all this right now, Badenock appears to be the only clean skin. I mean, that's probably a little bit unduly harsh on reform. Nothing nefarious has been proved against them at all. But she must capitalise on this tomorrow at PMQs, Tim. Yeah, it's an important one. And we'll be covering it. Shall we discuss Randy Andy next? You're saying that the Epstein Association was more sexual than monetary. Let's get on to that in just a moment.

26:57So we've squared off the political side of things. Let's get on to the royal because the other person that you did feature on the whiteboard but we didn't discuss at length is the Andrew, formerly known as Prince. And I'm now beginning to wonder whether this whole Mandelson scandal is actually a blessing in disguise for the exiled and errant royal. Camilla, the Clintons have agreed finally to testify to Congress about Epstein, which means American royalty will speak. What about British royalty? Well, a royal has spoken today, but it isn't the erstwhile former Duke of York. It's actually his younger brother, Prince Edward, who, addressing event today, said this to a CNN journalist.

27:37This is an important question to ask, and I want to ask it in the context of what we've seen from their majesties and their response. And they're saying that we should be focused specifically on the experience of the victims. The palace has been very, very clear on that. We've just heard some commentary from Prime Minister Kiristama as well. and bearing that in mind, and he's saying that there needs to be assistance for the victims. And I wonder what you think of this, because it is so close to home, clearly very difficult, and I know you've put in various plans in place to move the institution forward, but how are you coping with that?

28:13Well, with the best will in the world, I'm not sure this is the audience that is probably the least bit interested in that. So they all came here to listen to that, education solving the future. But, no, I think it's all really important always to remember the victims. And who are the victims in all this? That was Prince Edward speaking in Dubai. And whenever people say we must think of the victims first, on the one hand, that feels like they're not saying anything. On the other hand, it says everything. Because it reminds us there are victims. There are victims. And by implication, Andrew is connected to a man who victimised young girls.

28:47I did think about last night, by the way, as we're all kind of poring over the salacious details and looking at photographs of former politicians in their pants. but actually the central core of all this is being lost. It's being overshadowed. Young girls, women were abused over the course of many years. Do we have any idea how the Yorks are doing? Well, we understand from our royal editor, Hannah Furness, that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, as he's now known, may be moving out of Royal Lodge in Windsor today to travel up north to Norfolk where he is going to be accommodated at the king's expense at Marsh Farm on the Sandringham Estate.

29:26There had been a degree of prevarication about how urgently he needed to move out of his property and that appears to be happening. We don't know for definite, but we could expect some photographs landing of him and the removal trucks a little later. What about Fergie? Do we know what's happening with her? My understanding is that actually Fergie is in a much worse position, would you believe, than Andrew. I can. Because Andrew now, although his reputation has been shot to pieces, There's no prospect of him making any kind of comeback. I don't think he can be rehabilitated. He can't do a Profumo because actually he doesn't have the late politician's intellect or indeed sort of introspection.

30:07Profumo famously, after that scandal, went and helped other girls. He worked anonymously and for free as a lawyer. Yes. A prince can't do that. An ex-prince can't do that. And also I just don't think that Andrew's got the wherewithal. So I think there's a degree to which Andrew's mental health has probably suffered quite significantly as a result of all of this extremely negative coverage that many people say, well, bad luck, you've made your bed and now you've got to lie in it. For Sarah Ferguson, she separated and divorced Andrew many, many years ago, back in the mid-90s, and yet maintained a relationship with him, described themselves as the most happy unmarried couple in the world.

30:50People often question, well, why did she stay with him? Why did she continue to live with him? Was it just because he was a meal ticket? To a certain extent, yes. But also I think she always regarded him as her most stalwart support and that they were there through thick and thin, whatever happened, they would always be a unit. Her language around herself, Andrew, and the two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, was quite reminiscent of how George VI described his relationship with the Queen Mother and their two daughters. He described them as we four. And Fergie has used similar language to describe the tight-knit nature of that family.

31:27And by the way, I'm led to understand that there had been some reports that Eugenie is no longer speaking to her father. I'm told that's wide of the mark, that the daughters are still supportive of the parents, despite the fact that their names has been dragged through the mud. And you mentioned yesterday some very inappropriate language used by Fergie in an email to Epstein about the fact that Eugenie had been on a, quote, shagging holiday with her then boyfriend, now husband. So Andrew's there. He has this place that he can live in. He can go below radar. I think he's going to be subsisted by his brother for the rest of his life.

32:00And I suppose the interesting question will come when there's a succession to the throne. Will Prince William be as accommodating of his uncle? Probably not. George's out. Probably not. Charles is a bit of a softy. William, not so much. And also we've seen how he's treated his brother Harry. So make of that what you wish. Fergie, I mean, she hasn't got anyone now supporting her. Andrew's unable to financially or otherwise. She doesn't have anywhere to live. And at the moment, she doesn't really have an income. A lot of the monetary associations with Epstein were to Fergie, not necessarily to Andrew.

32:37There are associations to Andrew with regard to the supply, allegedly, of Russian girls who were trustworthy, 24, and, you know, all the rest of it. And we know that Andrew repeatedly went to Epstein's different properties, flew on the Lolita Express and all the rest of it. And there's a separate conversation to be had about some of Andrew's dodgy associations with the Gaddafis, bizarre Kazakhstanis and all the rest of it. Ferguson, now, where does she go from here? Her reputation's also shot to pieces. Should she do a big interview? If she wants to, she's welcome here on The Daily Tea, isn't she, Tim?

33:13Any time. Any time. Should she write a tell-all book? You referenced one of her previous books. It's called Things I Know Now. From the 1980s. I don't know where it's from, but after conversations with friends and lawyers, she'd like to make it clear that she actually knows nothing. She knew nothing. She didn't even like Epstein that much. And by the way, he kept on phoning her in a Hannibal Lecter-style manner to threaten her. But she's always had a Marie Antoinette complex, hasn't she? She's always had an easy, free and easy relationship with money. Yes. Well, she's always been very profligate and she's always needed a lot of cash.

33:49I heard the most interesting anecdote this week about somebody who had bumped into Fergie somewhere, a fellow Brit who was fairly high profile, and they got chatting. And Fergie turned around and said, oh, you must just fly home with me. Do you need to get back to Britain? Do you need to get back to Blousey? Come with me. And he said, well, I can't possibly come with you. I don't have a plane ticket. And she said, don't worry. Whenever I travel, I always buy two tickets just in case I meet somebody interesting on the way. I mean, imagine that level of expenditure. And I don't think we're talking about economy.

34:23I find that utterly charming. Oh, stop it. I find that utterly charming. You have got such a soft spot for Fergie. I do. What are you thinking? Why? This is somebody who is, according to Andrew Lowney, is the lowest of the low, has toadied to a convicted paedophile post-conviction. She's going there and wanting to stay in his New York place with the daughters, by the way. She's lied about the fact she says she cut him off. No, she didn't. And you've got this... I can't justify this at all. I'm just besotted. I'm sorry. Did you like her outfit at Harry and Meghan's wedding, that big green hat? I mean, what is this all about?

34:59I don't know. To me, she's like a pet that I sort of over-groomed and over-fed and it's become utterly indulgent and occasionally bites me. She's like your Garfield. But I just can't get enough of her. I'm in love. She's basically like your little Garfield, your little ginger tabby that you like to stroke. But anyway, so she's in a very bad place, as one can expect. Just mentioned Lowney there, who was on yesterday's Daily Tea. This is the York's biographer. He's written this really quite eye-popping book called Entitled The Rise and Fall of the House of York. And if you didn't listen to yesterday's, do listen to it.

35:33because Lowney's basically now moving into the position that the SNP and reform are occupying in regards to Mandelson and that's to say actually the police need to investigate Andrew and they need to look at whether he may be guilty of, he said, misfeasance in public office. That's actually a civil tort. It's not for the police to investigate that but they could investigate the former Duke for misconduct in public office because at the time he maintained this relationship with Epstein, He is, of course, the UK's trade envoy. He occupies that role for quite a long time, 2001 to 2011, which is the critical period of time that Mandelson is involved with Epstein, too.

36:15Yes. Be interesting to find out how many times Mandy and Andy's paths crossed. But I looked this up because I thought, could this really stand? Would the CPS take an interest in this, the Crown Prosecution Service? What's the legal bar? The legal bar for finding, well, charging somebody for misconduct in public office, it's really high. You need to satisfy the following, that they are a public officer, OK, that they were responsible for willful misconduct or neglect. They have to have had a high degree of misconduct. So that's a seriousness threshold that means that the actions must fall far below the standard that could reasonably be expected.

36:58So simple negligence or incompetence or minor errors in judgment wouldn't meet the bar. There needs to be a proven abuse of public trust. So the conduct must amount to an abuse of the public's trust in the office holder. And you have to have done all this without reasonable excuse or justification. So the prosecution must prove an absence of a valid reason for the action. The strange thing is, listen to all of that. I'm not thinking of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. I'm thinking of Peter Maddelson. Yes, because actually there's no paper trail suggesting at this stage that Andrew was spilling state secrets to Epstein or royal information that might be confidential or anything that might have resulted in the electorate being affected.

37:50The most compelling accusation relates to sex with a minor and trafficking across borders. Yes. So that if it were ever to be a criminal case... And she is now dead. She's dead. It's not been stood up. He's not been found guilty of anything in a court of law in this country. He may be compelled. He may come under an intense amount of pressure to go and give evidence. Follow the Clintons and go and give evidence. Yeah, US Congress. But there's no legal compulsion for him to do that at all. And actually, he may turn around and say, excuse me, British and American public, you've told me to disappear down a hole for the rest of my life.

38:23I've had to move out of my house. I no longer have any titles. I no longer have a public role. I'm meant to be treated as a private citizen. So with that in mind, I'm never going to emerge again, and certainly not in front of Congress or a court of law. Why should he have to? Yes. But Mandelson could appear to meet this legal bar on many different levels. Yes. And is that partly because Mandelson actually was a serious public figure and Andrew never was? Possibly. Well, let's be honest. Andrew was there to open doors. He was a mascot for Britain. And exercise soft power. Gulf states that liked meeting royalty, because they are themselves royals, would appreciate Andrew to be there to open an event, pour the champagne and introduce people.

39:10But no one is suggesting that Andrew was central to bailing out the banks. In fact, his best defence Andrew could be, well, I'm sorry, while I was doing this, everyone considered me to be a pompous and bumbling idiot. I knew nothing, yes. Fascinating stuff, Tim. We're going to be covering PMQs. You're going to be in the House of Commons to see whether Badenock does indeed make capital of the saga and the crisis currently engulfing the Labour government. That's tomorrow, 5pm.