The featured image is of two men at the center of a Westminster storm: Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein. The latter’s reflection in the mirror proves that he’s not a literal vampire. He was, however, a figurative one: He’s still sucking the life out of many politicians and public figures. Epstein’s two biggest victims in the UK are Mandelson and the artist formerly known as Prince Andrew. Strike the word victim, they don’t deserve any sympathy.
American commentators are getting the news out of London all wrong. Prime Minister Keir Starmer will survive the latest flap. A press conference held by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar calling on Starmer to resign backfired. There’s a lot of backfiring right now.
Starmer has lined up the cabinet behind him and will muddle through. Nobody in Labour has stepped up to challenge him. Such backstabbing is endemic in the Conservative party. That’s why the last Tory government had five Prime Ministers. Their slogan could be: Coups R Us. So much for the old school stiff upper lip:
The real reason for the furor coming out of London is Peter Mandelson whose tenure as ambassador to the court of Mad King Donald was short-lived. There’s no equivalent to Mandelson in American politics. His nickname is the Prince Of Darkness and he’s a master of spin, intrigue, and backstabbing. He’s also brilliant and charming with an impeccable Labour pedigree: His grandfather Herbert Morrison was Deputy PM in the great Labour Government of 1945-1951.
Mandelson was crucial to Labour’s 1997 landslide. He’s always felt he didn’t get enough credit for his role in Labour’s return to power after 18 years in the wilderness. The title of Mandelson’s 2010 memoir reflects that:
The title is an excellent example of Mandelson’s cheekiness. The Third Man is not only the title of the classic movie, it refers to the post-World War II spy scandal, which isn’t something one would expect a British politician to touch with a ten-foot pole. Peter Mandelson is no ordinary politician.
Mandelson is widely hated in his own party. They were willing to tolerate him in the past because of his mastery of the dark arts, but his fatal flaw has doomed him to infamy. That flaw is his attraction to the rich and powerful and the goodies they can bestow on him. Mandelson is gay, so the usual Epstein speculation doesn’t apply. He was in it for the concierge service provided by the degenerate American.
There’s an unintentionally hilarious article in The Atlantic by Idrees Kahloon. It postulates that British politics is somehow purer than ours. In a word: Nonsense. Like its Tory predecessor, the Labour government is wildly unpopular. So much so that right-wing populist trickster Nigel Farage’s Reform party is running first in all the horse race polls. Reform is a misnomer, they’re really the Deform party. Farage was one of the instigators of Brexit, which has been a disaster but the Starmer government has been reluctant to directly address it. The only difference between Donald Trump and Nigel Farage is that the latter likes a nice pint at his local pub.
Shorter Adrastos: British politics is just as fucked up now as American politics.
The Atlantic’s Kahloon is right about one thing: Heads are rolling in the UK because of the Epstein Effect. Casual lying isn’t as acceptable there as it is here. It’s why Peter Mandelson may have his peerage stripped from him. He’s already left the Labour party but it’s not enough for his critics. They want his head on the proverbial pike. Being the Prince of Darkness isn’t all it’s cut out to be.
The last word goes to The Clash: