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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Via AP news wire

How Mandelson appointment nearly cost Starmer his job as UK prime minister

Epstein Britain Politics - (Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has faced the biggest crisis of his leadership because of his decision to appoint a close ally of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to the plum job of U.K. ambassador to the United States.

Many warned him not to appoint Peter Mandelson, a 72-year-old grandee of the Labour Party, to the job. Starmer, who never met Epstein, accepts that Mandelson's appointment was a mistake, and has apologized to Epstein's victims as well as to Labour and the country as a whole.

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