Met police launch investigation into alleged Mandelson-Epstein email leaks

The Metropolitan police have formally launched a criminal investigation into allegations that Peter Mandelson leaked Downing Street emails and market sensitive information to the child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Documents from the Epstein files released in recent days appeared to show the then business secretary sent confidential details of internal discussions to the late financier in the aftermath of the financial crash.The revelations have prompted a furious backlash from across the political spectrum, including Gordon Brown who was the prime minister at the time of the alleged breaches, and have once again thrown the spotlight on the decision to appoint Mandelson US ambassador.Detectives are now expected to interview Mandelson and request access to his devices, as well as take witness statements from senior Labour party figures including Brown and senior civil servants from around the time the emails were sent.They are also likely to ask the US administration to give them unredacted copies of the emails, amid concerns that Mandelson used a now defunct private BT internet email address to correspond with senior government figures

Mandy wonders where it all went wrong as Labour throws him to the wolves | John Crace

Last week, Peter Mandelson was giving his comeback interview to the Times, scheduled to be published later this month. He posed for cosy pics with the dog as he explained how hard done by he had been and how much the country could benefit from his largesse and expertise.Late on Sunday night, that interview was crowbarred into a hastily rearranged one to take in Mandy’s sudden resignation from the Labour party after seemingly more revelations of Peter taking money in the recently released Epstein files. Mandelson appeared to take it in his stride.He had done plenty of sleazy things in the past and survived

‘Finally got him to go’: how Epstein was given inside track on events that rippled through global markets

On a brisk Monday evening in May 2010, Gordon Brown stood on the steps of Downing Street and delivered one of the most dramatic announcements of the New Labour era: his resignation as UK prime minister.The decision came days after a nail-biting general election that left no single party with a clear run at No 10. Brown kept his decision, which followed days of political wrangling, to a tight inner circle. Nick Clegg, who would go on to serve as deputy prime minister of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, was formally told of Brown’s resignation only 10 minutes before the announcement.But across the pond, a man named Jeffrey Epstein, a well-connected financier and convicted child sex offender, had been briefed hours before

Mandelson scandal shortens odds on Starmer following him out the door

In many political scandals there is an agreed full stop, a time for the circus to move on: maybe a resignation, certainly a police investigation. But for Downing Street, Peter Mandelson risks being a headache that simply will not end.Mandelson’s future in public life is definitively over, or as definitive as you can be for a figure who, much as with the Conservative saying about Boris Johnson, would possibly need to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through his heart before you could completely rule out another comeback.After resigning from Labour as yet more revelations about his links to Jeffrey Epstein emerged, Mandelson has now departed from the House of Lords, and efforts are under way to strip him of his title.With Mandelson off the scene, at least until he breaks cover with another self-serving interview, the focus is very much on Downing Street, and how on earth the team around Keir Starmer thought it was a good idea to appoint such a tarnished, if well-connected, figure to be the ambassador to the Donald Trump court

Excruciating epitaph for Peter Mandelson | Brief letters

Perhaps only Peter Mandelson could be shockingly candid and shamelessly duplicitous in the same memorable sentence: “We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes” (Report, 2 February). And perhaps the only virtue of the incorrigible is that they often supply – unwittingly – their own excruciating epitaphs.Paul McGilchrist Cromer, Norfolk In 2017, Peter Mandelson said of the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn: “I work every single day in some small way to bring forward the end of his tenure in office.” That should have been enough to expel him from Labour, which would have saved a lot of trouble for the party now.David SangBrighton If we needed further proof that Keir Starmer has the worst political instincts, surely Mandelson is it

Peter Mandelson resigns from Lords after Epstein email leak scandal

Peter Mandelson has resigned from the House of Lords after a series of scandalous emails came to light that linked him to the child sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein, including ones that apparently leaked confidential UK government communications.The move came as Keir Starmer said he had handed a dossier to the police after it emerged Mandelson had sent a string of emails to Epstein containing briefings he received as business secretary under Gordon Brown, including action the government was taking to deal with the global financial crisis.Starmer told a meeting of the cabinet on Tuesday morning he was appalled by the reported leaks and had also asked officials to draft legislation to strip Mandelson of his peerage “as quickly as possible”.Mandelson’s departure was announced by the speaker of the House of Lords, meaning he will no longer be a member of the house from Wednesday, though he will retain his title, which can be removed only by an act of parliament.A Downing Street spokesperson said it was “right” that Mandelson was quitting adding: “As the prime minister said this morning, Peter Mandelson let his country down