Good morning.
The Epstein scandal may be about to claim it's first political leader — and it's not the (suspiciously absent from the emails) Donald Trump, but the UK prime minister Sir Kier Starmer.
If that sounds hyperbole, read on.
European readers won't have been following the inner machinations of Downing Street's Labour party spin doctors, and may be only dimly aware of "Lord" (he still for the time being has that title, but has been barred from the actual House of Lords) Peter Mandelson's history as a UK minister 15-25 years ago — and his not one, but TWO, previous government resignations for first lying and then lobbying.
His role as EU trade commissioner from 2004-20008 is now under scrutiny, during which time he was holidaying on the yacht of Russian billionaire oligarch Oleg Deripaska whilst arguing for scrapping the 50-percent tariff on Russian aluminium imports. Deripaska owned Rusal, a Russian aluminium giant.
Starmer's decision to rehabilitate Mandelson a year ago, and make him the British ambassador in Washington, made sense in one way — the role requires a suave networker with a huge contacts book.
Mandelson ticked that box. But now the three million US department of justice document drop revealed that he leaked market sensitive information on the EU euro bailout to Epstein ahead of time, and lobbied from inside UK government against his own prime minister Gordon Brown's planned bankers' bonus tax, on behalf of Epstein, has put Mandelson under police investigation, outraged Labour MPs, and called into question Starmer's judgement - just as his personal ratings had already tanked in the polls.
What will likely happen next is the resignation of Morgan McSweeney, the Mandelson-protogee, who is Starmer's chief of staff and right-hand man, and who persuaded Starmer to appoint Mandelson.
If that doesn't stem the tide, then the deeply unpopular Starmer — who won an election with a whopping majority of 174 less than two years ago, remember — may have to fall on his sword.
Matt Tempest, comment editor
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