Was Mandelson the ideal courtier to ‘King’ Trump’s gilded palace?
Lord Mandelson’s US ambassador role sparks controversy over Epstein ties and Trump rapport, raising questions about whether his political grit or unedifying connections sealed the Washington appointment.
I n all the shock and horror over new revelations over Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein, it’s worth considering this possibility: that the Labour peer was appointed Britain’s ambassador to Trump’s America precisely because he shared some unedifying connections with the Big Chief, Donald Trump.
Notably, an apparently warm relationship with the billionaire financier despite his status as a convicted paedophile.
So too Donald Trump, by all accounts. Lord Mandelson could probably relate!
Remember the mixed reactions back in December to the announcement that Lord Mandelson would be the UK’s ambassador to Washington?
Some MPs belonging to UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party expressed surprise Lord Mandelson received such a plum appointment given his criticism of the current party, its discourse and how it was led.
But others had understood the rationale for this very political appointment. Lord Mandelson was a tough politician, they said, one who had taken on difficult jobs in the past, not least helping to make Tony Blair’s Labour Party electable in the mid-1990s and later serving as European Union trade commissioner.
Back in December, when his appointment as ambassador was announced, The Guardian quoted a Labour MP on Lord Mandelson’s skillset for the job. The MP noted the Labour peer’s credentials as a political networker and his tough approach to deal-making: “Mandelson is very good at making relationships, [he] has unmatched negotiation skills as shown in his EU trade commissioner role and has a trade union background which is overlooked. Trump is transactional, and Mandelson will be able to cope with this.”
Another MP, quoted by the paper, considered Lord Mandelson in relation to Donald Trump: “In a room with Trump, Mandelson will look like an angel. But this is politics, hard politics.”
That last quote is revealing.
Did Prime Minister Starmer dispatch to ‘King’ Trump’s gilded palace a courtier who came bearing that rarest of gifts — an empathy the vast majority of Britons neither possess nor wish to have? Only Lord Mandelson could speak the same language as Mr Trump, perhaps one that embraced fond words for Epstein.
GOING FURTHER
Mandelson: more ‘very embarrassing’ details of Epstein friendship to come | THE GUARDIAN
Starmer facing fresh questions after Mandelson sacking | BBC NEWS
Why Epstein and Mandelson’s friendship matters even more than you think | THE INDEPENDENT
Appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to US divides Labour MPs | THE GUARDIAN
Sources:
▪ This piece was first published in Medium and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 17 September 2025 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.
▪ Cover: Flickr/The White House. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)
