A Labour peer today revealed how he warned Downing Street against appointing Peter Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the US more than 12 months ago.
Lord Maurice Glasman described how he sent a memo to Morgan McSweeney, who has now quit as the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, after attending Donald Trump‘s inauguration last year.
He said he told No10 aides after the event on 25 January 2025 that Lord Mandelson was an ‘inappropriate choice’ to be the UK’s most senior diplomat in Washington DC.
Lord Glasman added his fellow peer was ‘the wrong man’ as he recounted being shown photographs of Lord Mandelson together with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
‘When I was in DC, it was almost exactly a year ago, people just walked up to me with their phones,’ he told Sky News.
‘Peter Mandelson blowing out the birthday candles with Jeffrey Epstein and in his bathrobe… all these pictures.’
The scandal of Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador has plunged Sir Keir into the worst crisis of his 18-month premiership.
As he battles to remain in power, Lord Glasman advised Sir Keir to ‘repent and reject’ the ideas of New Labour – of which Lord Mandelson was a key architect in the late 1990s – that leads to ‘leads perversion and paedophilia’.
Lord Maurice Glasman described how he sent a memo to Morgan McSweeney, who has now quit as the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, after attending Donald Trump’s inauguration last year
The scandal of Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador has plunged Sir Keir Starmer into the worst crisis of his 18-month premiership
It has been revealed how the memo sent to Mr McSweeney by Lord Glasman warned: ‘Withdraw Peter Mandelson. He is the wrong man at the wrong time in the wrong place.’
The memo, sent in early 2025, also suggested a ‘bold’ alternative appointment as US ambassador could be Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
Lord Glasman also said Dame Karen Pierce, the existing US ambassador, was doing ‘a fine holding job’ with the Trump administration.
Speaking to Sky News on Sunday about his warning to Downing Street over Lord Mandelson’s appointment, Lord Glasman said: ‘What I wrote was, ‘he was the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time’.
‘I mean, it was a very inappropriate, choice because… this issue of Epstein is massive in the States, I don’t think then, a year ago, we understood the resonance of this story.’
Lord Glasman added that Downing Street ‘didn’t take my advice’ in early 2025, and suggested Sir Keir could not ‘conceive of this scale of duplicity’ over Lord Mandelson’s links to Epstein.
‘I don’t think he understood the scale of the risk,’ he said.
Lord Glasman said Lord Mandelson had ‘an extraordinary work ethic’ as the ‘intellectual orginator and the enforcer’ of New Labour, which won three general elections under Sir Tony Blair.
Asked about the future of Labour, he continued: ‘Labour has to, the Government and the Labour Party has to repent and reject New Labour as an alien body that took over the party.
‘And this is where it leads perversion and paedophilia.’
Lord Mandelson was appointed as Britain’s ambassador to the US by Sir Keir in February 2025 but was sacked in September last year over his links to Epstein.
Newly-released documents in the US, known as the ‘Epstein files’, have since revealed further details about Lord Mandelson’s relationship with the paedophile financier.
The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation following allegations that Lord Mandelson sent market-sensitive information to Epstein while he was business secretary in Gordon Brown’s government during the financial crisis.
Scotland Yard has said its probe into Lord Mandelson over alleged misconduct in public office would ‘take some time’ after officers finished searching his homes in London and Wiltshire.
Lord Mandelson has denied the so-called ‘Epstein files’ show he broke any laws or acted for personal gain. He has repeatedly said he regrets his friendship with Epstein.