I warned Starmer’s team about Mandelson – why wasn’t I listened to | Politics | News
Lord Glasman says he warned Mandelson was the ‘wrong man, wrong time’ (Image: Getty)
A Labour peer has delivered a devastating attack on Lord Mandelson and the New Labour era, saying it “just led to sin and vice, squalor and deceit, and perversion and disgusting actions.” Lord Glasman made the explosive intervention on Sky News this morning [Sunday] after revealing he warned Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff against appointing the disgraced peer as US ambassador.
The peer said the ideology of New Labour led to “perversion and paedophilia” and demanded Labour “must absolutely repent of New Labour”.
He branded Lord Mandelson “the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time” and delivered a withering assessment of his behaviour, questioning his relationship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. “Have you ever gone underwear shopping with another man? It strikes me as a very strange thing to do,” he said.
Lord Glasman claimed he told Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir’s chief of staff, last year that the appointment would be disastrous due to Lord Mandelson’s links to Epstein.
Read more: Keir Starmer should be replaced by ‘caretaker’ say Labour MPs – 2 options named
Read more: Starmer heckled over family farm tax – ‘people are killing themselves’
The peer, who was invited to Donald Trump’s inauguration, said Epstein “is seen as a metaphysical evil” in America and warned the scandal’s “resonance” had been badly underestimated. “I wrote he was the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time,” Lord Glasman said.
He added: “It was a very inappropriate choice, because this issue of Epstein is massive in the States. I don’t think a year ago we saw the resonance of this story.”
Lord Glasman said Britain had failed to grasp how seriously Americans view the Epstein scandal and Lord Mandelson’s connections to the convicted sex offender. “It is a massive thing in the States,” he said.
He added: “And when a conspiracy theory is confirmed as basically true, it is a catastrophic event.”
Lord Glasman said Labour had badly misjudged both the scale of the Epstein scandal and Lord Mandelson’s role in Labour’s history.
“[Labour] didn’t understand two things. Firstly the scale of all of this, and second that Peter Mandelson was the founder and creator of New Labour,” he said.
Mandelson has been stripped of his seat in the House of Lords over the scandal (Image: Getty)
The extraordinary intervention comes as pressure mounts on Sir Keir over his handling of the Mandelson appointment.
The Prime Minister has admitted he knew about Lord Mandelson’s Epstein connections before appointing him as US ambassador, later blaming the peer for “lies” about the depth of those ties.
Lord Mandelson has been stripped of his seat in the House of Lords, expelled from Labour and removed from the Privy Council as the Metropolitan Police continue their investigation.
Court documents have revealed Lord Mandelson shared highly sensitive market information with Epstein when he was Business Secretary in 2009, including details of a โฌ500billion EU bailout and UK asset disposals.
Emails also suggest he tried to help Epstein obtain a Russian visa through his ties to oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
The scandal has triggered a Labour civil war, with backbench rebels demanding answers about what Sir Keir knew and when he knew it.
The Prime Minister has stated he regrets appointing Lord Mandelson and claims he was “lied” to. Lord Mandelson denies criminal wrongdoing.
