Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer says he beat himself up over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the US, despite the peer’s links to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Sir Keir said he was his own harshest critic over his appointment of the former peer to Britain’s top diplomatic posting abroad.
The Prime Minister continues to face questions about his judgement after the release of government documents that showed he had been warned – before approving Mandelson for the role – of a “general reputational risk” over the peer’s association with the disgraced financier.
“Nobody has been harder on me in relation to the mistake I made there than me,” he told Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast.
“In the immediate days after this all came out, I was particularly hard on myself. So yeah, everybody else was criticising, I get all that.
“But nobody was criticising me more than myself. I’m not trying to, you know, make that a mitigation or an excuse, but I know I made a mistake.”
“I beat myself up about it,” he added.
The prime minister sacked Mandelson in September after newly revealed emails showed the depth and extent of the then peer’s relationship with Epstein was “materially different from that known at the time of his appointment”.
The Tories said it showed an “extraordinary error of judgement” by Sir Keir and that it raised “massive questions” about what he knew about the pair’s relationship and when.
Sir Keir said that Mandelson lied repeatedly during the vetting process.
The PM went on: “I know that after nearly 20 years fighting violence against women and girls, I made a mistake there. And I hate the fact I made that mistake.
“And I dwell on it. I beat myself up about it. It’s certainly not a mistake I'd ever repeat. But there's no criticism anybody else can level at me that will be as harsh as the criticism I dished out for myself."
Last month, MPs ordered the government to release tens of thousands of documents relating to Mandelson's appointment in 2024.
The documents are expected to detail how the peer was vetted and what was known about his relationship with Epstein, who died in 2019.
Mandelson quit the House of Lords last month before being arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. It has been alleged that he leaked sensitive government information to Epstein while he was a minister.
Mandelson’s spokesperson has said he “very much regrets” the connection with Epstein, and allies have said the pair met no more than five or six times. In January, Lord Mandelson apologised to the victims of Epstein for remaining friends with the paedophile financier after his conviction.
The first tranche of documents relating to the appointment was published earlier this month. More will follow.
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