A member of the Labour Party in the House of Lords has disclosed that he cautioned Downing Street over a year ago about appointing Peter Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the United States.
Lord Maurice Glasman shared that he communicated his concerns through a memo directed to Morgan McSweeney, who has since stepped down as the Prime Minister’s chief of staff. This followed his attendance at Donald Trump’s inauguration last year.
Following the event on January 25, 2025, Lord Glasman informed aides at No. 10 that Lord Mandelson was not a suitable candidate for the prestigious role of the UK’s chief diplomat in Washington DC.
Expanding on his reservations, Lord Glasman characterized Lord Mandelson as ‘the wrong man’ for the job, citing images of him alongside the notorious Jeffrey Epstein.
“When I was in DC nearly a year ago, individuals approached me with their phones,” he recounted to Sky News.
“There were photos of Peter Mandelson blowing out birthday candles with Jeffrey Epstein and dressed in a bathrobe… all these images,” he remarked.
The scandal of Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador has plunged Sir Keir into the worst crisis of his 18-month premiership.
Lord Glasman advised Sir Keir to ‘repent and reject’ the ideas of New Labour – of which Lord Mandelson was a key architect in the late 1990s – that leads to ‘leads perversion and paedophilia’.
Lord Maurice Glasman described how he sent a memo to Morgan McSweeney, who has now quit as the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, after attending Donald Trump’s inauguration last year
The scandal of Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador has plunged Sir Keir Starmer into the worst crisis of his 18-month premiership
It has been revealed how the memo sent to Mr McSweeney by Lord Glasman warned: ‘Withdraw Peter Mandelson. He is the wrong man at the wrong time in the wrong place.’
The memo, sent in early 2025, also suggested a ‘bold’ alternative appointment as US ambassador could be Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
Lord Glasman also said Dame Karen Pierce, the existing US ambassador, was doing ‘a fine holding job’ with the Trump administration.
Speaking to Sky News on Sunday about his warning to Downing Street over Lord Mandelson’s appointment, Lord Glasman said: ‘What I wrote was, ‘he was the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time’.
‘I mean, it was a very inappropriate, choice because… this issue of Epstein is massive in the States, I don’t think then, a year ago, we understood the resonance of this story.’
Lord Glasman added that Downing Street ‘didn’t take my advice’ in early 2025, and suggested Sir Keir could not ‘conceive of this scale of duplicity’ over Lord Mandelson’s links to Epstein.
‘I don’t think he understood the scale of the risk,’ he said.
Lord Glasman said Lord Mandelson had ‘an extraordinary work ethic’ as the ‘intellectual orginator and the enforcer’ of New Labour, which won three general elections under Sir Tony Blair.
Asked about the future of Labour, he continued: ‘Labour has to, the Government and the Labour Party has to repent and reject New Labour as an alien body that took over the party.
‘And this is where it leads perversion and paedophilia.’
Lord Mandelson was appointed as Britain’s ambassador to the US by Sir Keir in February 2025 but was sacked in September last year over his links to Epstein.
Newly-released documents in the US, known as the ‘Epstein files’, have since revealed further details about Lord Mandelson’s relationship with the paedophile financier.
The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation following allegations that Lord Mandelson sent market-sensitive information to Epstein while he was business secretary in Gordon Brown’s government during the financial crisis.
Scotland Yard has said its probe into Lord Mandelson over alleged misconduct in public office would ‘take some time’ after officers finished searching his homes in London and Wiltshire.
Lord Mandelson has denied the so-called ‘Epstein files’ show he broke any laws or acted for personal gain. He has repeatedly said he regrets his friendship with Epstein.
