"A general election was on the horizon and Peter Mandelson was everywhere. He didn't have a desk but he would dip in and out on big issues; he was always there for advice, recalled a former Labour official of the party's run-up to the campaign in 2024. He would be in and out of the Loto [leader of the opposition] office in Westminster, picking people off individually,"
"Sue didn't want him near anything, said the source of Sue Gray, who was then Keir Starmer's chief or staff and for six years before that was head of the Cabinet Office's ethics and propriety team. She kept trying to push him away. I think by that point, he was definitely, like, pestering for a role and wanting a role. She could probably see that all of this would happen."
"Emails within a cache of 3m documents released by the US Department of Justice, suggesting that Mandelson had passed on market sensitive documents to Epstein at the height of the financial crisis, prompted Starmer to claim that Mandelson had betrayed our country. During the vetting process before his appointment last year as Britain's ambassador in Washington, he was said to have portrayed Epstein, who killed himself in his cell in 2019, as someone he barely knew."
Peter Mandelson was highly active around the Labour campaign, informally advising and approaching individuals in the leader of the opposition's Westminster office. Some figures welcomed his presence as New Labour reassurance while others sought to keep distance. Sue Gray repeatedly tried to limit his influence, describing him as pestering for a role. The prime minister apologised for believing Mandelson's claims about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein after a US Department of Justice document cache suggested Mandelson passed market-sensitive documents to Epstein during the financial crisis. Vetting before Mandelson's ambassadorial appointment portrayed Epstein as someone he barely knew despite those implications.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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