Whatever you do, don’t ask UK’s new US ambassador Peter Mandelson about Jeffrey Epstein
The UK’s new ambassador to the US has said reporters asking about his alleged links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ‘can all f*** off’.
Lord Peter Mandelson, once a prominent figure in the New Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, was picked for the post by Sir Keir Starmer before Christmas.
He landed in Washington DC yesterday to begin his role, taking over from his popular predecessor Dame Karen Pierce.
But since his appointment in December, questions have been circling about his reported friendship with the disgraced financier, who died in 2019.
An internal report from the JP Morgan bank, filed to a New York court in 2023, said Epstein seemed to ‘maintain a particularly close relationship with Prince Andrew the Duke of York and Lord Peter Mandelson, a senior member of the British government’.
The incoming ambassador was asked about those links by the Financial Times as part of a lengthy interview.
Lord Mandelson said: ‘I regret ever meeting him or being introduced to him by his partner Ghislaine Maxwell. I regret even more the hurt he caused to many young women.’
He then added: ‘I’m not going to go into this. It’s an FT [Financial Times] obsession and frankly you can all fuck off. OK?’
The Labour grandee arrives in Washington at a testy time for the special relationship between the UK and US.
Returning President Donald Trump has slapped tariffs on several of his country’s closest allies, and warned recently the UK is ‘way out of line’ while adding: ‘I think that one can be worked out.’
One of his closest advisors, billionaire Elon Musk, has been far more direct in scathing criticism of Keir Starmer’s government and previously suggested it should be overthrown.
Lord Mandelson told the Financial Times he was ‘intrigued’ by Musk, describing him as a ‘fascinating individual’ who has an ‘inaccurate picture of Britain’.
He has previously offered a harsh assessment of Trump, who he called a ‘white nationalist’, a ‘danger to the world’ and a ‘bully’ during his first term in office.
But that tone has now changed, and he offered an apology for his words in an appearance on Fox News last week.
The 71-year-old said: ‘I consider my remarks about President Trump as ill-judged and wrong.
‘I think times and attitudes towards the president have changed since then.’
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