How bad are the Mandelson files for Keir Starmer?

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1:02This is a Global Player original podcast. On Peter Mandelson, look, and I do try to give pretty full answers in these sessions, I don't know any more than you do. And therefore, there's not really much I can add to what you already know, I'm afraid. And, you know, that's simply the state of the affairs. Thank you. That was Keir Starmer in January two years ago, before he was Prime Minister. He was asked about an FT story, claiming that Mandelson had stayed in Epstein's flat. Keir Starmer was told what had happened and he pleads ignorance. But once Keir Starmer had become Prime Minister, he knew all about the relationship between Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein.

1:54So why was he still appointed our ambassador? Was it a distinct lack of curiosity on Keir Starmer's part? Or was he just looking the other way? Welcome to The News Agents.

2:12It's John. It's Emily. It's Lewis. And we are sifting through the newly released Mandelson files. And to be fair, there is no obvious smoking gun that puts to an end all our questions and all our queries. But there are some pretty significant clues in here which tell us about how that appointment came about and who seemed to be asking the right questions and who wasn't really asking any questions at all. The newly released documents show that the appointment itself was so rushed that Mandelson was given classified briefings by the Foreign Office before he'd even been vetted in full by the security services.

2:59So if we take you back to that claim by Keir Starmer in the Commons to Parliament that full due process was followed, it doesn't seem to be that simple. Plus, you add on the words of his national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, which have now come to light. Powell raised at a time his own concerns that this appointment was being weirdly hurried, weirdly hurried. Now, you could argue that this was all done in time for the Trump inauguration of January the 20th. I guess that holds to a certain extent. but surely not if the whole question of vetting is so critical to who is going to take this huge role.

3:47And not for the first time there were questions being raised about Peter Mandelson. You know the same questions about Peter Mandelson and who he associated with were raised when Gordon Brown wanted to reappoint him to the Labour government back in 2008 And here we are in 2024 and Keir Starmer's just won an election and is deciding who should be the next ambassador to Washington. And there are people raising the same concerns. You talk about Jonathan Powell. Sir Philip Barton, the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, also raised reservations about the appointment. And apparently in Washington, there was some unease about Mandelson's connections with Epstein and how the Epstein story was going to blow even bigger.

4:31this is from Karen Pierce yeah from Karen Pierce I mean from the one let's say the one woman in the room yeah and Karen Pierce was Peter Mandelson's predecessor as our ambassador it's true to say she wanted to stay on as ambassador but she also kind of was hearing from various people that there were problems with a Mandelson appointment and so despite all of this the appointment of Mandelson goes ahead and the line that was given was that all due process was followed really? well at the start of apparently was also warned about potential conflicts of interest from his role. That is Mandelson's role with the lobbying firm Global Council.

5:07Knew that he was seen as an advocate for closer UK-China relations. And indeed, the Cabinet Office's due diligence report, we can see, was basically littered with red flags about the risk of his appointment. So I think that the real political danger, as you said, Emily, is around this question of a full due process. and it is clear that even from within number 10 itself, i.e. Jonathan Powell, what he said, if he sits out there going, actually, this seems weirdly rushed, it's hard to cohere that with due process. Something else, which is, I think, a really interesting extra bit of detail on all of this, is not something that's in the documents, but actually an interesting vignette from the new paperback edition of Get In, which is a book written by the journalists Patrick McGuire and Gabriel Pogrand.

5:54And listeners, viewers will remember we actually had them on last year when the hardback was out. We've actually interviewed them for Friday's show. Really interesting conversation, sort of update to everything that's happened since. Keir Starmer's relationship with McSweeney, McSweeney leaving, and indeed Peter Mandelson. And there's a section in the book which actually, or the postscript in the book, which really, really stunned me. And it's where they reveal that at no point, at no point during this process, during this full vetting process, as Keir Starmer has talked about. Did Keir Starmer and Peter Mandelson ever speak before his appointment as ambassador?

6:31Just listen to this. Our understanding, you know, and our sort of well-sourced understanding is that there was no conversation between Peter Mandelson and Keir Starmer at any point during that appointment process, which is remarkable, considering all the problems it's caused for him and how important Peter Mandelson was to managing the most important relationship Britain has. In fairness, Starmer, in the Commons, said that he lied and lied again to my team rather than to me. So I'm sure Keir Starmer was very deliberate with his language there. Nonetheless, given how controversial he and his team will have known the Manelson appointment might have been, even without the Epstein stuff, and given how important that job is of US-UK ambassador, that's why he was even considering appointing Manelson in the first place, because it was such an important job managing that Trump relationship.

7:20I think people will be surprised here that at no point did Manilson and Starmer even speak. And Starmer at no point perhaps thought to ring him just to say, let's just talk through this, particularly with regards to Epstein. Talk me through the nature of your relationship. Is there anything I ought to know which I don't know beyond what's in the public domain? You know, I think this is the bigger truth about all of this, which I think is absolutely fascinating. And this doesn't clear Keir Starmer from a massive error of judgment in appointing Peter Mandelson, given what we know now. What it speaks to, and as I say, this doesn't exonerate Starmer, in some ways it makes it worse, is the extent to which Starmer doesn't have many close personal political relationships.

8:03Certainly not with Mandelson. And Mandelson, I heard that when Keir Starmer went to Washington and had that key meeting with Donald Trump and Peter Mandelson was the ambassador, again, Peter Mandelson wanted to brief Starmer ahead of the meeting in the White House. And Starmer just said, no, no, I'll read my briefing notes and didn't want to speak to Peter Mandelson. There is no relationship between them. So the idea that I think is being put around is that, oh, Keir Starmer just wanted to appoint his buddy, Peter Mandelson. There's no buddy relationship there. What you see from this, and this is what I think is so damning in a way, is that Keir Starmer contracts out key decisions to people like Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff, who most certainly did have a relationship with Peter Mandelson and say, you get on with it.

8:53And Keir Starmer doesn't ask any of the right questions and doesn't see the need to kind of monitor this very, very closely. And so you've got Jonathan Powell, who was chief of staff all through the Blair years, who has chapter and verse on the problems that Peter Mandelson can bring to government, saying, whoa, and Keir Starmer going, oh, well, no, Morgan, this is up to you. If this is what you want, you'll have it. Because I think one thing that is becoming clear is that there was a certain amount of due diligence over this appointment, but none of it seemed to filter through to the prime minister himself.

9:28I mean, if Jonathan Powell was actually saying these things out loud at the time, and one has to believe he was, why wasn't Keir Starmer hearing that? The cabinet office also highlighted Mandelson's former role at a company with links to the Russian military ahead of his appointment. Now, why wouldn't that ring bells? You know that he's got this global council company that apparently he was a former non-executive. He had a non-executive director role at Systema. Systema's chairman is a Putin ally. And this goes back to 2017. So, yes, before the second invasion of Ukraine, but not before the first one in 2014.

10:06This is stuff that the cabinet office is bringing all the time. and presumably there were enough people around and go, oh, it was a long time ago, don't worry, we're not going to worry about it. The other question is the payout, right? A lot has been made of that and I think there's been a certain amount of sort of damage limitation exercise going out. Oh, Peter Manson asked for half a million pounds as a payout but luckily we talked him down to just 70 ,000. This is after he got fired. If you go through the contract and I think there's been work done at the New Statesman on this, If you go through the contract, it makes absolutely clear that there is zero payout if he is removed from that job.

10:47So instead of sort of saying, oh, isn't it great? We only paid him 70 ,000 instead of 500 ,000, half a million. Maybe the question we should be asking is why was any money paid out at all? Yeah, and there are a lot of Labour backbenchers who are raising that question. I think from the government point of view, they wanted this done, done quickly. They wanted a confidentiality agreement signed with Peter Mandelson. and so that this would be done and dusted and wouldn't be in the public domain. That is the way government is done. That is the way all sorts of companies operate. When you've got to get rid of a high-profile employee, you pay them a sum of money.

11:23Did I think that£70 ,000 was excessive? Probably not. I mean, you've got to do something. But what are you paying for? Well, you're terminating their contract. You're terminating their contract, not because you've changed your mind, but because evidence has come to light, presumably, which has made it impossible for them to stay in that job. Well, I suppose that's the key. That's the key question. What is the evidence that has come to light? Because he maintains that he was above board and he told everyone everything that they asked. And that from the two-page summary that was released yesterday, you get a pretty clear impression of Mandelson's previous business relationships, of the relationship with Jeffrey Epstein went on beyond that first conviction that he had.

12:05Although some of the documents in the DOJ files did show how lurid it was. Not least as well the suggestion that there was advice being given to Epstein and how he was managing his PR. But that's why that first clip is so important, the one that we started with at the very beginning, because that is two years ago, Keir Starmer was being told by the FT reporter who'd done the work that Mandelson stayed in Epstein's flat apartment. And this is why I actually think, look, I think there's been a lot of excitement about these documents. And we should, of course, remember that lots of the key documents are actually missing because they're forming part of the police investigation, as we've been saying, and the texts and WhatsApps are still to come.

12:42They could be very embarrassing and it will obviously be more personal and so on. But I think in terms of the sum of what we saw yesterday, I'm not sure it tells us that much more that we didn't already know. We already knew that Starmer had made a bad decision in appointing Mandelson. We already knew that he knew about the Epstein links. We already knew that there had been, it had been flagged, some of these problems had been flagged to him. Yeah, we're seeing it in black and white. Yeah, I think there is some political pressure over the question of just how good the kind of due diligence process was.

13:15And the PM said that there was a sort of full process followed. And maybe it wasn't quite as full as he might have implied. But fundamentally, he's already absorbed the political damage on this. It's already well absorbed. His premiership almost went over it. And if there is no smoking gun, to use your phrase, Emily, in the remaining documents, I'm not sure as of right now that it pushes it any further forward. Well, also, it's landed, as we said yesterday, at a sort of opportune moment for Keir Starmer when he can say, forgive me if my mind is on Iran and, you know, the damage being done to the rest of the world right now, rather than something that happened here two years ago.

13:49I think the timing is going to help. And I think also, I mean, look, you know, if you're the opposition, you want to make, hey, you want to make as much of this as possible. But I do think that there are elements of the coverage today, further to your point, Lewis, where you think, are you making a mountain not out of a molehill, but out of, you know, we knew. We've already seen the mountain, right? Or you flip it around and say, are they getting ahead of something because they know that worse is to come, Which is entirely possible as well. Maybe, but then you're left with Kemi Baden-Ock as the leader of the opposition.

14:24And we've said on this podcast over the past few months that, you know, a lot of stuff, she's really landing the blows well on this government. And then just occasionally you think, are you overplaying your hand? Have a listen to her this morning. It is a shame that there are not enough opposition MPs to remove the prime minister. Labour MPs now need to consider their position and ask themselves in good conscience, should this man be running our country? He has shown a complete lack of judgment, catastrophic error after catastrophic error. And the only reason why we know any of this is happening is because I asked him at the dispatch box again and again and also forced the release of the Mandelson files.

15:05Are Labour MPs still coming to you for a vote of no confidence? Well, that's a discussion that a few of them have had with the whips. I think that what Keir Starmer is right now is a hostage to Labour MPs. He is doing anything that he can to please his backbenchers rather than doing what is right for the country. I want someone who puts the national interest above their party interest. I think Keir Starmer right now is only thinking about the Labour Party and that is not what we need. Are we really to believe that Labour MPs are going to see the Conservative whips to discuss putting down a motion of no confidence in Keir Starmer?

15:47I find that one really hard to get my head round, that that would be the behaviour of any Labour MP. Well, also, I mean, can we be not saying it's a shame there aren't enough opposition MPs to get rid of the Prime Minister? Well, if there were, he wouldn't be the Prime Minister in the first place, right? that is kind of how the parliamentary maths works. But yeah, I don't understand. I mean, look, Kevin Baden-Ock did do well against the Prime Minister. He had his worst day in the Commons when she forced him to say that he knew about the links between Epstein and Mandelson. But Labour MPs don't need to go to the leader of the opposition to get rid of Keir Starmer as the leader of the Labour Party.

16:21They can just get rid of the leader of the Labour Party. They've got their own mechanisms to do that. So I'm not entirely sure where that comes from. Yeah, I also think that phrase that he's making catastrophic decision after catastrophic decision looks less good when you've just called for us to go to war. Well, indeed, yeah, indeed so. I mean, as I say, it feels to me as if the energy... This is obviously a terrible, terrible episode for Keir Starmer. It's been a humbling episode, the entire thing. It almost destroyed his premiership. But I think by virtue of the fact that it almost destroyed his premiership, as I say, that political damage has been absorbed.

16:53And save for something over and above coming out which contradicts directly something he's told at Commons, It just feels to me as if this is just a rinse and repeat. So I do still wonder about this whole thing that, you know, we highlighted about his relationship with Mandelson, that they never actually spoke. And I think that's true of Keir Starmer and so many of the senior people around him where he doesn't have a relationship with them. He doesn't seek their advice. He reads copious amounts of briefing papers. No one could say he shirks that responsibility. But, you know, there was that letter that went to the Labour MP saying, I'm going to listen more carefully and bring you in more closely to decision making.

17:34And you just wonder how much that will happen and how much of it is just Keir Starmer's personality, that he's got a tight group of friends who are probably from outside of politics mostly. He doesn't much like political gossiping, intriguing, what are the latest opinion polls, what are people saying about this and that. And I think that is the fatal weakness of his premiership, that he's sort of locked away. And I don't think his feet has that feel for the risks in politics because... Well, he trusted McSweeney. And we know that McSweeney had deeply personal reasons for wanting to help Mandelson with what he was requesting, because Mandelson had helped McSweeney in the past with...

18:17Other issues. Other issues, exactly. So I guess that's where the prime minister lies, isn't it? You know, he relied on his chief of staff to do the thing that he thought was going to be in the best interest of everyone and didn't ask enough questions. Right. When we come back, we're going to be talking about Iran. But in particular, whether the Iran crisis is an opportunity for Keir Starmer to do something that he clearly has wanted to do for quite a while, which is move closer again to the EU. Stay with us.

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19:57The News Agents So obviously the situation in Iran is demanding and needs to demand so much attention. And you kind of got the dissonance of Donald Trump in Kentucky yesterday talking about, we've won we've done it we beat them we beat them in the first hour and yet there is still no shipping movement in the straits of humus there have been more vessels attacked and we have had the first statement from the new supreme leader muhtaba khamelein who gave a statement but it was read out for him on state television so he still hasn't been seen since the attack attacks were launched two weeks ago, which in turn has sparked a whole kind of theory that maybe he was injured in the attack or even worse.

20:52But the first statement from the new Supreme Leader has been read out by a TV presenter rather than by him, in which he says that Iran will avenge the blood of Iranians who have been killed and also saying that we will maintain the blockade of the Straits of Hormuz. a very deliberate measure, move, statement that will ensure that there is going to be no drop in the price of oil. I just want to unpick that a moment because it is quite interesting. When we first heard about the death of Khamenei, i.e. his father, there was a rumour that the son had been killed too. Now, the Iranians denied that and there is a thought from the Iranian side that actually he got hurt, he possibly broke his foot, that's why they don't want to put him out there, He's alive, but he's not in a good condition to deliver the speech.

21:42Hence, a newscaster is doing it. The Israelis are sort of soft launching this theory that maybe Muqtaba didn't survive the bombing. Obviously, you've got a certain amount of propaganda on both sides here. So I'm not going to weigh in on which is true. But there is clearly a sort of question mark, shall we say, on why this man is delivering such a forceful statement without actually being present. unless you just take the theory that he's shit scared to show his face because frankly, you know... He could be geolocated and be taken out by... Or anyone else, exactly. If they can find him, they can get rid of him.

22:18And if there's one thing we know about America now, it's that they are not scared to, you know, decapitate, behead the next leader. They've sworn that they will keep going. But all of this, I mean, we talked yesterday about the chaos that was being created by the Iranians in the Straits. And despite the fact yesterday we saw the enormous release of, coordinated release of oil from the strategic reserves, hasn't made a difference. No. Hasn't touched the size. Oil prices climbing back above$100 a barrel. Stock markets falling again as the Iranians are making clear that any shipping from allied targets will be legitimate, legitimate targets for their own strikes.

22:54So again, we're in a situation I think that's got even worse by comparison to yesterday. Whereas I really think we're potentially looking, unless Trump probably having, you know, being forced to rely on leaning on allies. I think we're potentially looking at a humbling of American power here, the way things are going. Because if Trump cannot and the wider West, it looks like Emmanuel Macron and others were talking about, you know, providing military assistance to keep those tankers flowing. But if that doesn't work and we're looking at a situation in which the entire energy supply of the Western world is being not just disrupted, but stopped, or a big proportion of it anyway, as a result of this intervention.

23:35And the Americans can't guarantee that flow. That is just a humbling of American power against what is basically a tin pot regime at this point, militarily in Iran, using drones and a few missiles to disrupt these trades. And we've talked about oil, primarily, and the price of oil per barrel, which climbed over$100, as you said. But it's also about other shipments. It's about fertilizer. Fertilizer affects everything that is grown in the ground. If they can't get the fertilizer, then the cost of food production goes up. There is also, you know, we're hearing from the United Nations now a threat of famine as well.

24:08So this is this is having bigger ramifications, even than oil, which is kind of what powers the world and what powers the military and what powers, you know, geopolitics. But it is even affecting really the price of everyone's food from now on. And the UN estimating as well, three million people displaced in Iran itself, who obviously have nothing to do with any of this. I mean, it's interesting as well. I mean, obviously, the sort of economic plates are shifting. Even this war is starting to affect so much, even potentially the political relationship, maybe, between the UK and the EU. it's being reported that the Prime Minister is convinced that as a result of the foie deir that there now is between the UK and the US, the kind of cooling of relations.

24:55Oh, a nice little EU word you said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You Remainer. You Remainer. Honestly, what's a Brexty word for foie deir? Would Donald Trump understand? You know, is anyone going to go into... Chile, yeah, a bit parky. Is anyone going to go into the Oval Office and say there's a bit of a foie deir? I don't think so. Sorry, why don't you sing? Yeah. Well, he's more interested in everybody's shoes. Have you seen this? He's getting Marco Rubio to wear very specific shoes. Anyway, as a result of that parkiness between the UK and the US now, Starmer is looking to try and improve a new deal between the UK and the EU, which is currently being negotiated between the Cabinet Office Minister, Nick Thomas-Simmons, which up to now has been focusing on an SPS agreement that relates to agriculture.

25:43but government sources saying that negotiations are generally going really well and that the Iran war has made the EU rethink some of its own red lines with regards to UK participation in defence schemes and other things that previously before the war had been considered off-limits. So the potential may be for the UK to get closer to the EU in this parliament than had been thought possible even just a few weeks ago. I do love these moments because everyone who's sort of traditionally on a Remainer side goes, finally, we're about to rejoin the EU. We're about to rejoin the customs union. And everyone on the sort of Brexit side goes, oh, I knew he'd do this.