Sir Keir Starmer has spent four years trying to convince Britain he is the grown-up in the room: disciplined, forensic, and immune to the chaos that consumed Labour.
Yet the implosion of Peter Mandelson’s brief appointment as Britain’s ambassador to Washington has dealt a savage blow to that carefully cultivated image.
The appointment was intended as a triumphant flourish — the architect of New Labour’s global reach returning to the frontline as Britain’s man in Washington. Instead, it collapsed within days under the weight of Mandelson’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein. What makes this debacle politically lethal is that Starmer was warned about those links in advance, yet pressed ahead.
The revelations were explosive. A U.S. congressional committee released a book created for Epstein’s 50th birthday in which Mandelson was described as his “best pal.” Hours earlier, the Foreign Office had been alerted to a cache of emails even more damning, including one in which Mandelson urged Epstein to “fight for early release” before sentencing. This was not the odd social encounter — it suggested an intimate and enduring relationship.
As outrage mounted in Westminster and Washington, Mandelson was left twisting. Starmer never phoned him during the crisis. Within days, the appointment was withdrawn. Mandelson, long famed for his survival instincts, was abruptly discarded — and responded by blaming Starmer’s “lapse of judgment” while insisting, astonishingly, that he does not believe Epstein was a paedophile.
The Mirage of Competence
This episode has punctured the central claim of Starmer’s leadership: that he offers competence and caution after years of Labour recklessness. He and his team — including campaign chief Morgan McSweeney — had received a report warning of Mandelson’s Epstein ties and ignored it. That is not the meticulous due diligence Starmer boasts of; it is hubris.
It also exposes a dangerous complacency creeping into Labour’s leadership. Flush with poll leads, they appear convinced nothing can imperil their march to Downing Street. It is precisely such overconfidence that breeds blunders. Elevating Mandelson was not a strategic necessity; it was a theatrical gesture designed to broadcast Labour’s return to global relevance. Instead, it has ended in humiliation.
Starmer’s silence throughout the storm is perhaps the most revealing detail. A leader who cannot confront his own handpicked envoy during a reputational crisis invites doubts about how he would handle a diplomatic or security emergency in office. Leadership demands intervention, not squeamish distance.
The Perils of Political Amnesia
There was always risk in rehabilitating Mandelson. He is a figure who embodies New Labour’s glamour and its moral compromises. Twice forced from Cabinet over improprieties, he has long been both admired and mistrusted. Starmer miscalculated that those old controversies were priced in — but Epstein is not an old controversy. It is a living wound. Any association is toxic.
That Mandelson could, even now, assert that he does not believe Epstein was a paedophile only compounds the misjudgment. It suggests a refusal to recognise the moral gravity of Epstein’s crimes — and by extension, raises questions about the judgment of those who sought to place him in Britain’s most prestigious diplomatic post.
Starmer promised to turn the page on Labour’s chaos. Instead, he has shown how easily it can return — not as ideological warfare, but as carelessness at the top. The episode will fade from headlines, but it leaves a scar on Starmer’s claim to be the adult in the room.
Competence is his only real political brand. If voters cease to believe in that, nothing else will save him.
