Legal Risks and Libel Culture

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‘This could be the end for Starmer’. Pundits, sub-editors and political rivals have been drawn to this phrase more than any other over the past 18 months. Evidentially, it seems a spurious claim. The Prime Minister has trudged on, by all accounts unfazed, despite the merry-go-round of self-immolation (call it a self-destructive fireworks display) that’s dogged his premiership. Labour’s top-scorer, much like the PM’s beloved Arsenal, has been own goals. And yet with a soviet-style majority, Starmer still will think he is top of the league.

When Peter Mandelson, the ‘Prince of Darkness’ (I imagine he now calls this a ‘regrettable’ nickname), was chosen as US Ambassador there was consternation on many wings of the Labour Party.

In fact, over a year before he was made US Ambassador, the FT had uncovered a JP Morgan report from 2019 which found Epstein and Mandy had kept a ‘particularly close relationship’ - and that he had stayed at Epstein’s home in 2009, shortly after his conviction for ‘soliciting an underage girl’. One would think Mandelson’s close friendship with an astonishingly powerful convicted nonce would be enough to stave off his proximity to a party preparing for government. But clearly assurances were made.

The public were well aware of just how implicated Mandelson was in the Epstein affair. You don’t need to be a PR expert to realise that much more was to come. When faced with the treachery of the latest revelations in the Epstein files, it looks quite unforgivable that Mandelson was allowed to return to high office. Our own security services had briefed No 10 that he was compromised. Were they aware that Mandelson had been forwarding highly sensitive information to Epstein (sometimes within seconds) from his personal email account? That he had told JP Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon to ‘mildly threaten’ then-Chancellor Alistair Darling over a Bankers’ bonuses tax?

My gut feeling is that this is very very bad news for Starmer, who has never been much of a Mandelson whisperer, and his under-fire chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, who has been accused of personally backing Mandelson’s appointment. Mandelson’s response to ‘own the narrative’ has revealed just how out of touch he is - a few posed magazine shots with your dog and grumbles about how ‘unfortunate’ the whole affair is, isn’t going to cut the mustard. You were best mates with the world’s most notorious nonce, allegedly took money from him and leaked sensitive information against your own country’s interests. You’re a disgrace.

This has really cut through and solidified the distrust many feel towards a faction of the Labour Party obsessed with power. As Anoosh Chakelian put it in the New Statesman, voters are fed up with “the dark triad of New Labour’s Third Way: a distant political class; rule by political spin; amoral liberal pragmatism”. We shouldn’t be making decisions just for the sake of saying ‘we got to make them’. There must be morality in our mission.

Chapters

00:00 - Intro

00:33 - How Dan Neidle Broke the Mandelson Affair

01:55 - The Financial Crash and Mandelson's Correspondence w Epstein

10:22 - Is This Treason?

19:54 - Did Mandelson Know the Epstein Leaks Were Coming?

26:05 - The Legal Ramifications of Reporting on Epstein/Mandelson

32:00 - The Consequences for the Labour Government

37:54 - Will Mandelson Face Criminal Proceedings?

43:24 - Have the Conspiracy Theorists Been Vindicated?

51:28 - What did Dan find out about Ghislaine Maxwell and Mandelson?

54:54 - Will This Change the Media's Relationship with Powerful People?