LONDON — Keir Starmer is so often portrayed as a process-obsessed lawyer that a colleague once called him “Mr. Rules.”
But Wednesday’s documents release about the prime minister’s appointment of Peter Mandelson — a friend of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — to be Britain’s ambassador to Washington provides more evidence of the raw politics that greased the wheels of Downing Street.
There is no “smoking gun” that showed Starmer knew everything about the Mandelson-Epstein relationship. That’s because he didn’t, and one was never expected. The question from the PM’s critics has always been whether he should have taken a different course, given what he did know.
That means the most difficult revelation for Starmer is that a top Foreign Office official and his most senior foreign policy aide, national security adviser Jonathan Powell, both had concerns about the appointment — even as the PM’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, pushed to get it over the line.
In other words: The process was there, but the final call was political — and rested on the PM’s personal judgement.
‘Reputational risk’
Starmer decided to sack Mandelson last September after new revelations about his close historic friendship with Epstein. Mandelson has apologized “unequivocally” for his association with Epstein and “to the women and girls that suffered.”
The prime minister said at that time — and often repeats now — that the “depth and extent” of the relationship clearly went further than he had known when he appointed Mandelson.
This is true, but the new files show red flags were there nonetheless.
The 147-page cache published by the U.K. government shows Starmer was warned that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein was a “reputational risk.”
A note to the prime minister from Dec. 11, 2024 provides the receipts for what Starmer recently admitted — that he was warned about reports that Mandelson had stayed in Epstein’s home after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Aides also flagged to Starmer the fact — which was not public at the time — that Mandelson brokered a meeting between his friend Epstein and former PM Tony Blair in 2002 to talk about “economic and monetary trends.”
Separately, Starmer’s national security adviser Powell raised concerns, albeit they only appear in the files after Mandelson’s sacking.
Powell’s misgivings are revealed in notes of a “fact-finding” call between Powell and the PM’s General Counsel Mike Ostheimer, the evening after Starmer sacked Mandelson last September.
The notes show Powell — who had worked for years with Mandelson in Tony Blair’s Downing Street — raised concerns about Mandelson’s reputation directly with McSweeney.
Powell told Ostheimer he had found the process “unusual” and “weirdly rushed” — and that the most senior civil servant in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Philip Barton, also “had reservations around the appointment.”
But Mandelson got the job anyway, and arrangements were made in haste ahead of Donald Trump’s January 2025 inauguration as U.S. president. Mandelson was handed his IT equipment and first set of “official sensitive” level files on Boxing Day.
Two previous shortlists in 2024 — one compiled by Starmer’s predecessor as PM Rishi Sunak, and a second by McSweeney’s predecessor as chief of staff Sue Gray — had been torn up before Mandelson strode forward. Starmer made his decision less than a week after receiving the due diligence report.
‘Morgan’s fingerprints are all over this’
Wednesday’s document dump shows the political relationships that lay behind this process.
Two names crop up repeatedly in the files; those of McSweeney and Starmer’s then-Director of Communications Matthew Doyle, who were both political special advisers in No. 10 and personal friends of Mandelson.
The documents show that McSweeney and Mandelson spoke to each other repeatedly. At one point on Dec. 20, 2024, shortly after Starmer approved the appointment, it was McSweeney who contacted Mandelson personally to flag the need for him to fill out conflict of interest forms.
When the Epstein friendship was flagged in due diligence, McSweeney had a “back and forth” with Doyle, the former communications chief told Ostheimer in a separate fact-finding call.
This back-and-forth resulted in McSweeney asking Mandelson three questions about his links with Epstein.
After this, Doyle was “satisfied” with Mandelson’s responses about his contact with Epstein, according to the note to Starmer on Dec. 11, 2024.
Doyle, whom Starmer elevated to the House of Lords, had the Labour whip suspended in February after it emerged he had campaigned for a friend who at the time had been charged with, and was later convicted of, child sex offenses. (Doyle has previously apologized for this “clear error of judgment.”)
One senior Labour MP, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly, said: “Matthew Doyle’s understanding of what is appropriate contact with a pedophile is somewhat questionable.”
Crucially, Mandelson’s answers to McSweeney’s three questions have not yet been published. The email chain has been held back at the request of the Metropolitan Police, which is midway through a separate investigation into Mandelson.
When this email chain is eventually published, No. 10 aides believe it will support Starmer’s case that Mandelson “lied” to Downing Street about his relationship with Epstein.
Mandelson’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment after the documents were released Wednesday.
An outrageous fortune
There are other elements of the new files that will reassure Starmer’s restive MPs.
The most obvious is that McSweeney and Doyle have both already left No. 10.
The senior Labour MP quoted above said: “It’s a good thing Morgan’s gone because his fingerprints are all over this. How could he possibly have stayed?”
A second Labour MP said it was a relief that McSweeney had left. “He was working against the prime minister’s best interests,” they said.
The other factor cheering Labour MPs is what the files say about Mandelson in his own words, fueling his new-found status as a Labour hate figure.
The files show Mandelson asked for a £547,201 severance payment after his sacking (he got £75,000), and told the FCDO’s Chief People Officer Mark Power in September that his “chief concern” was arriving back with “maximum dignity and minimum media intrusion.”
“[Labour MPs] are more preoccupied with the £500,000,” said a third Labour MP loyal to Starmer. “What kind of person asks for that?”
But this is only one step on the road for Starmer’s No. 10, and for possible questions about the prime minister’s judgement.
The government has yet to publish extensive WhatsApp and email communications between Mandelson and Starmer’s ministers and aides, not just about his appointment and dismissal but about broader politics, relationships and strategy.
Wednesday’s files show the concern that the breadth of this planned publication — forced in a vote by the opposition Conservative Party — sparked in No. 10. As Starmer prepared to agree to the transparency earlier this year, his private secretary for foreign affairs, Ailsa Terry, told a fellow official there should be a “welfare check” on Mandelson every day.
Downing Street also announced on Wednesday that it will review the separate national security vetting system — details of which have not been published in Mandelson’s case — to learn lessons from the former ambassador’s developed vetting.
All for what?
The great irony is that Starmer might have avoided all this pain by listening to officialdom.
Wednesday’s document release confirmed that two unnamed government officials were found “appointable” for the ambassador job following a recruitment process in April 2024, under Starmer’s predecessor Sunak.
Two people with knowledge of the process told POLITICO that the lead candidate was the then-No. 10 national security adviser Tim Barrow, as widely reported at the time.
And the runner-up? Christian Turner, the two people said.
It is Turner to whom Starmer has now turned for a steadier pair of hands in Washington. Critics might wonder why he didn’t appoint him in the first place.
Mason Boycott-Owen contributed to this report.
CORRECTION: This story was updated on Mar. 12 to correct a reference to the circumstances around Matthew Doyle losing the Labour whip.
