The Guardian view on the Mandelson-Epstein emails: unavoidable questions of misconduct in public office | Editorial

2026-02-02 - 19:25

Leaking crisis policy to financiers demands investigation, not evasion. Gordon Brown understands this. Credibility can’t be pursued at the expense of trust Finally, a Labour prime minister has taken a necessary step. Ordering the cabinet secretary to investigate Peter Mandelson’s contacts with Jeffrey Epstein recognises an elementary truth: if a cabinet minister discusses private government business with financial interests during a crisis, the state must act. Gordon Brown understood this instinctively. Sir Keir Starmer has moved later, and under pressure, but movement alone is not enough. Sir Keir said that Lord Mandelson should be stripped of his peerage while stopping short of legislating to make that happen. That is a choice. And it’s the wrong one to make. The Epstein files make it hard to dismiss the question of misconduct in public office as frivolous. In 2003/04 it appears that as a Labour MP he received $75,000 from Jeffrey Epstein. Lord Mandelson says he has no recollection of these payments. Six years later, Lord Mandelson leaked sensitive government information during the banking crunch in 2009 to Epstein, a convicted sex offender, while serving in the cabinet. Emails suggest he advised US bank JP Morgan to “threaten” the UK chancellor, which by all accounts it did, over a proposed tax on bankers’ bonuses. The peer’s lobbying firm Global Counsel later had JP Morgan as a client. Continue reading...