Starmer: I would not have appointed Mandelson ‘had I known then what I know now’

Sir Keir Starmer said he would never have appointed Lord Peter Mandelson as the ambassador to the US if he had known the full extent of his relationship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The Prime Minister sacked Lord Mandelson last week but has faced questions about his judgment in appointing the peer, whose friendship with Epstein was public knowledge, in the first place.

Sir Keir gave public backing to Lord Mandelson at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday only to sack him the following day after the publication of email exchanges with Epstein.

The Prime Minister told broadcasters that Lord Mandelson went through a proper due diligence process before his appointment.

But he added: “Had I known then what I know now, I’d have never appointed him.”

The Prime Minister said he was not satisfied with Lord Mandelson’s responses to questions asked by officials about the correspondence with Epstein.

Emails published by Bloomberg included passages in which Lord Mandelson told Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

He is also reported to have told Epstein “I think the world of you” the day before the disgraced financier began his sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor in June 2008.

Sir Keir was aware when he stood up at Prime Minister’s Questions that further revelations were due about Lord Mandelson, because the then ambassador had acknowledged “very embarrassing” messages would surface.

The Prime Minister also knew the Foreign Office had asked Lord Mandelson questions about them, but he insisted he did not know about the content of the emails – or Lord Mandelson’s response to the official inquiries – until Wednesday night.

Sir Keir said: “What emerged last week were emails, Bloomberg emails which showed that the nature and extent of the relationship that Peter Mandelson had with Epstein was far different to what I had understood to be the position when I appointed him.

“On top of that, what the email showed was he was not only questioning but wanting to challenge the conviction of Epstein at the time that for me, went and cut across the whole approach that I’ve taken on violence against women and girls for many years, and this Government’s approach.

“On top of that, what emerged last week, on Wednesday evening late, were Peter Mandelson’s responses to questions that have been put to him by Government officials. I looked at those responses, and I did not find them at all satisfying.

“And therefore, on the basis of those three things – the nature and extent of the relationship being far different to what I’d understood to be the position at the point of appointment, the questioning and challenging of the conviction, which, as I say, goes to the heart and cuts across what this Government is doing on violence against women and girls and the unsatisfactory nature of responses from Peter Mandelson last week to the inquires made of him by Government officials – I took the decision to remove him.”