Starmer’s dereliction of obligation: As picture emerges of Andrew, Epstein and Peter Mandelson, PM admits he NEVER personally questioned the Labour peer over hyperlinks to paedophile earlier than making him US ambassador

Keir Starmer was accused of a ‘dereliction of duty’ last night after No 10 admitted he did not speak to Peter Mandelson before making him US ambassador.

Downing Street said there was ‘no requirement’ for the PM to interview the disgraced peer before handing him the most high-profile and sensitive post in the diplomatic service.

The revelation came as a sensational new photo emerged of what is thought to have been Mandelson’s first meeting with Jeffrey Epstein, alongside disgraced former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

The photo, believed to have been taken in the US at the turn of the century, shows a smiling Mandelson and Mr Mountbatten-Windsor sitting barefoot and dressed in bathrobes at a table with Epstein.

Kemi Badenoch said on Friday: ‘The fact Keir Starmer did not even meet with Peter Mandelson before appointing him as Britain’s ambassador to Washington is a total dereliction of duty.

‘Starmer likes to tell everyone how much of a hot-shot lawyer he was, yet he was handed a dossier clearly showing Mandelson’s close links to Epstein and didn’t even bother to interrogate the man he was about to appoint to high office.

‘These latest releases show yet again the appalling judgment of this weak, distracted Prime Minister. The country deserves so much better.’

Documents made public this week reveal that the Prime Minister was warned in writing that Mandelson’s ‘particularly close’ friendship with Epstein continued for years after the financier’s conviction for child-sex offences in 2008.

Sir Keir has told MPs that Mandelson ‘lied’ about his relationship with the notorious paedophile. But it has now emerged that he chose not to quiz the Labour grandee himself – instead delegating the task to a pair of advisers known to be close friends of the disgraced peer.

The PM’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney asked Mandelson just three questions about his friendship with Epstein. His former director of communications Matthew Doyle reviewed the responses and reported that he was ‘satisfied’ with them.

But both men are known to be proteges of Mandelson. Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said it was ‘an absolute absurdity’ to leave the scrutiny of Mandelson’s links to Epstein to two of his friends.

There is no evidence that Sir Keir asked any follow-up questions, despite being told that Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s New York mansion while the paedophile was in prison for soliciting a minor for prostitution.

Asked whether Sir Keir spoke to Mandelson before appointing him to Washington in December 2024, the PM’s spokesman replied: ‘The full process at the time of the appointment was followed. There was no requirement for a formal interview with the PM as part of that process.’

The spokesman added: ‘It is clear there are lessons to be learned from this… shortcomings have been highlighted.’

The revelations will raise fresh doubts about Sir Keir’s repeated claim that ‘full due process’ was followed throughout the disastrous appointment.

Tory frontbencher Alex Burghart has already written to the PM’s standards adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, asking him to investigate whether Sir Keir misled Parliament in making the claim to MPs.

But Sir Laurie last night rejected the calls, saying he was satisfied that the ‘relevant process’ had been followed. The first batch of the Mandelson files, released this week, showed that national security adviser Jonathan Powell advised against the appointment and complained that it was ‘weirdly rushed’.

Tory justice spokesman Nick Timothy said: ‘Keir Starmer told Parliament he had followed ‘full due process’ when he appointed Mandelson. It’s now beyond clear that this wasn’t true.’

Labour is also facing allegations of a ‘cover-up’, with Mrs Badenoch claiming that key files setting out the PM’s thinking are ‘missing’ or have ‘been removed’.

The files include the ‘due diligence’ document sent to Sir Keir which sets out Mandelson’s links to Epstein, plus accounts of his two previous Cabinet resignations and details of his business links to China and Russia.

But the space where the PM’s comments and instructions should be recorded is blank.

In a letter to the PM’s chief secretary Darren Jones, Mr Burghart set out a list of 56 files that appeared to be missing. Mr Burghart said the documents were ‘relevant to the Prime

Minister’s decision-making’ and said failure to provide them to Parliament could be a breach of the ministerial code.

Downing Street has denied claims of a cover-up. But the PM’s spokesman yesterday refused to say whether Sir Keir and key aides communicated through personal email accounts and phones to avoid their conversations being released.

Fresh from the sauna and under Epstein’s spell, Andy and Mandy

By Inderdeep Bains 

Wearing crisp white bathrobes with their hair still damp, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson sit on either side of their perverted ringmaster.

Fully dressed in a polo shirt and chinos, in what could easily be seen as a power play, Jeffrey Epstein is positioned between them with his arm casually draped over the back of his chair, clearly holding court.

The extraordinary image plucked from the three million-strong Epstein Files released by the US Department of Justice is the first that shows all three disgraced men together.

Thought to have been taken at a summer house in Martha’s Vineyard, the scene appears at first glance to depict a typical New England coastal getaway in the early noughties.

Friends lounging on wooden outdoor furniture with a barbecue in the background and coffee mugs emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes on the table.

However, it is far from a standard summer backyard photograph. Instead, it captures the beginnings of Andrew and Mandelson’s seedy association with the disgraced financier – connections that would later contribute to their dramatic downfalls.

Relaxed and barefoot in their gowns, and still showing that dewy after-spa glow, the Labour peer and the then-prince appear to have just emerged from a massage or sauna session.

It is a stark contrast to their ashen-faced appearances in recent weeks following their arrests on suspicion of misconduct in public office, linked to leaking sensitive data to the powerful financier. Both men are understood to deny the allegations.

The trio are believed to have been pictured at the holiday home of the wealthy Lady de Rothschild in the coveted community just south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

No time or date is given for the photograph, which was unearthed by ITV News, and it is unclear who is behind the camera. Like tens of thousands of other pictures and video contained in the Epstein Files, there is no context, but it appears to have been framed, suggesting it was placed on display at one of Epstein’s sprawling properties.

And it appears to have been taken at the same time as another, better known, image of Mandelson, again dressed in a robe, deep in conversation with Epstein.

That image featured in Epstein’s ‘birthday book,’ released by the Democrats in Congress last year, in which the Labour grandee left a nauseating message in his slanted handwriting describing the sex offender as his ‘best pal’.

The photograph is understood to have been taken between 1999 and 2000, before Epstein was jailed for soliciting a minor.

At that time Mandelson and Andrew are understood to have known each other thorough Mandelson’s role as Northern Ireland secretary. Their connection to Epstein stemmed via their mutual friends, Epstein’s on-off girlfriend and now convicted madam Ghislaine Maxwell and City financier Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, as well as his future wife, Lynn Forester.

In 2000, a year before Andrew was made the UK’s trade envoy, he and Mandelson, who was a senior adviser to the then prime minister Tony Blair, were both guests at the de Rothschilds’ wedding.

A woman who previously worked for Epstein said she had massaged both Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson on Martha’s Vineyard on an unknown date but said they were ‘both perfect gentlemen’.

Previously, Mandelson was thought to have met Epstein at de Rothschild’s summer retreat in 2001, but emails suggest their connection dates back to at least 1999.

The files released by the US authorities have revealed the ex-Labour minister had reminisced about their first meeting, describing being ‘entranced’ by the convicted sex offender.

In a 2013 email exchange with Epstein’s staff, Mandelson discussed a photo he had been sent, saying: ‘I think it was Martha’s the first time I met Jeffrey, staying with Lynn Forester.’

He is believed to be referring to Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the businesswoman and now widow of financier Sir Evelyn, who was one of Britain’s richest men before his death in 2022. 

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by de Rothschilds. In an exchange in 2010, Epstein emailed Mandelson a picture titled ‘the good old days’ to which Mandelson replied: ‘The first time we met and I was entranced.’

The release of the bombshell Epstein files have laid bare the depth of the relationship between Mandelson and Epstein, and Epstein and Andrew. Both men have denied wrongdoing but remain under police investigation for allegedly leaking sensitive information to the paedophile while in public office.

The Epstein files were released in January but the sheer quantity means new evidence is still coming to light.

It is not the first time that Mandelson, 72, and Andrew, 66, have appeared in embarrassing photos linked to Epstein, who died by suicide while awaiting a sex-trafficking trial in 2019.

One image, in the files released under the US Epstein Transparency Act, shows Andrew on all fours, leaning over a woman lying on the ground. Another shows Mandelson, the former business secretary, in his underwear talking to a young woman at the paedophile’s Paris apartment.