The last time Britain sent him off to foreign lands, Peter Mandelson launched a hush-hush operation to dig into the personal and political lives of his new EU colleagues, files from 2004 reveal.
Now poised to be our ambassador in Washington, Lord Mandelson will be discreetly researching his likely allies and enemies, if history is anything to go by.
For when the last Labour government sent him to Brussels as an EU commissioner in 2004, he asked the Foreign Office to quietly check out the backgrounds of his fellow commissioners from the other EU nations, the National Archives papers reveal.
Among the reports he got back was about how his Hungarian counterpart had a mistress who was ‘a former elite prostitute’.
In the summer of 2004, after the now Lord Mandelson had twice been forced to quit in disgrace as a Cabinet minister, he was given a political lifeline by Tony Blair who made him Britain’s choice as an EU commissioner.
Behind the scenes, Mandelson – nicknamed ‘the Prince of Darkness’ due to his Machiavellian manoeuvrings – wasted no time in getting the Foreign Office to start digging.
A Downing Street letter dated August 23, 2004, reveals: ‘He would like to know rather more about his colleagues.’
Written by Kim Darroch, who at the time was a senior diplomat advising the Prime Minister on Europe, it says Mandelson wanted to ‘go beyond’ the official biographies of his fellow incoming EU commissioners.
Peter Mandelson asked the Foreign Office to dig into EU colleagues when he was dispatched to Brussels as an EU commissioner in 2004
The EU commissioners in Brussels (Lord Mandelson is pictured at the centre rear)
Mr Darroch duly instructed the 24 British ambassadors in each of the other European capitals: ‘He would like to know about their politics, their personalities, their interests away from work, any attitudes towards the UK – in short, what makes them tick.’
Mr Darroch stressed the need to ‘discreetly establish’ information and asked for reports within four days.
John Nichols, ambassador to Hungary, responded with a dispatch to the Foreign Office marked ‘confidential’ about Hungarian commissioner Laszlo Kovacs, a former communist.
Kovacs, 65, had ‘no great grasp of the detail of EU business’, and his personal life was ‘complicated’, reported the UK’s envoy in Budapest, who wrote: ‘He is still married with one daughter, but in typical Hungarian fashion spends more time with his mistress, a former elite prostitute, Eva Endrenyi, who, according to some, will accompany him to Brussels.’
Eva Endrenyi holds up a pair of Laszlo Kovacs’ pants in a photoshoot for Hungarian media after their relationship had ended
A letter written by Sir Kim Darroch (pictured) said that Mandelson wanted to go beyond the official biographies written by his fellow incoming commissioners
Britain’s ambassador to Latvia reported that its country’s commissioner, Ingrida Udre, was an ‘elegant and vivacious 40-something’ who ‘likes to sing’ but ‘frets at her weight-gain as deskwork now outstrips exercise’.
From Slovenia, the British ambassador reported that incoming commissioner Janez Potocnik ‘likes his grub and going to the pub’.
The reports were collated for Mandelson – who served as EU trade commissioner from 2004 to 2008 – by Mr Darroch, now Sir Kim, who himself went on to become Britain’s ambassador to the United States, the post Lord Mandelson, 71, will take up in the New Year.