Epstein scandal: British ambassador to US fired
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has dismissed the UK's ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, after it emerged that the latter had maintained close ties with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein even after his first conviction. Mandelson has been a leading figure in the Labour Party since the 1980s, serving in several ministerial positions and as EU Trade Commissioner from 2004 to 2008.
Disturbing sycophancy
The Independent agrees with the dismissal:
“Mandelson should have known that supporting Epstein was wrong and unforgivable, and he should, at that point, if not long before, have severed his links with the paedophile. Instead, he was reassuring him by email that 'your friends stay with you and love you'. The sycophancy in their exchanges, most graphically in Mandelson's 10-page handwritten contribution to the 'birthday book' for Epstein, organised by Ghislaine Maxwell, is disturbing to say the least.”
Labour sinking in a quagmire of sleaze
The Daily Telegraph sees the whole affair as further evidence of the UK government's inability to meet its own high moral standards:
“The country was still trying to digest the resignation of the disgraced Angela Rayner when the latest seedy details of Mandelson's dealings with Jeffrey Epstein surfaced. It feels like the final confirmation of a damning revelation: namely that a Labour Government endeavouring to lead from the moral high ground ... is instead sinking in a quagmire of sleaze. Starmer has been keen to present his front bench as a disciplined army of technocratic fixers. They increasingly resemble an uncontrolled band of slippery operators.”
Starmer forced to chart tricky middle course
After firing Mandelson, who had close ties to the Trump administration, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer will have to perform an almost impossible balancing act, the Financial Times observes:
“The move now places Starmer in the invidious position of hosting Donald Trump next week, a president who denies that a message allegedly from him in the Epstein 'birthday book' was real. Starmer will surely be hounded by questions on all of this during the visit. Charting a middle course of recognising the justified anger of British voters without putting American noses out of joint will be a tricky, perhaps impossible task.”