by Oui
Mon Feb 9th, 2026 at 01:44:43 PM EST
Newly-released documents in the US, known as the 'Epstein files', have revealed further details about Lord Mandelson's relationship with the paedophile financier.
Peter Thiel, a co-founder of Palantir is also named in the material released by the US Department of Justice and has acknowledged meeting Epstein 'a few times'.
The Prime Minister and Lord Mandelson, who at the time was Britain's ambassador to the US, visited Palantir's offices in Washington DC in February 2025 (Image: Carl Court/PA Wire)
What links Jeffrey Epstein and Keir Starmer's government? A thick seam of contempt | The Guardian Opinion |
Contempt everywhere. From Jeffrey Epstein's email exchanges to the scandal of Peter Mandelson's appointment, contempt radiates. Contempt for women and girls, for the law, for the public. A continuum of disdain runs from Epstein on the one end to our political establishment on the other. The other thing that joins them is a restless pursuit of power.
Contempt is not a byproduct of that power, it is the point of it. Procuring, trading, objectifying and violating women and girls is the summit of potency for those who already have everything else: money, status, respect. To subordinate another human being to your urges, to reduce her in all ways, is to be initiated into a club of super-predators who are above the law.
The Epstein emails are a demonstration of how misogyny - there really should be a stronger word for it in this context - is a currency, lavishly spent to show how much power you have. The gut-twisting way that casual references to body parts would come up in correspondence is part of a whole language of signalling. Referring to women as "pussy" - or just "P" - is to flash your exclusive club membership card.
What facilitated that is a wider climate of scorn and impunity: the value system that still, even after Epstein was convicted, did not disqualify him from his friendship with others, nor disqualified those others from being appointed to roles such as British ambassador to the United States. Those caught in the revelations resort to the same excuses. We didn't know. We were lied to. We did not know the full extent. Some perhaps took the word of a convicted criminal that it was a bit more complicated than that; others took the word of a man who was twice forced to resign from government, and who continued his relationship with Epstein even after his conviction.
Now that it is all out in the open, there is regret, so much regret. "The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong," Morgan McSweeney now says, in his resignation letter as Keir Starmer's chief of staff. But to regret something is to suggest that it was all an unfortunate accident during which you should have had your wits about you. What people really regret is not realising that abuse of women and girls would ever be taken seriously.
The world of corruption has its own rules. It develops its own norms, its own codes. There is a definitive similarity in the way both Epstein and Mandelson conducted their business. They were favour merchants, fixers and facilitators; men who traded in networks, tribal hookups and fraternal flattery. Within that dynamic there was still an understanding that there were certain gentlemen's agreements that should be honoured - we can see that in the email in which Epstein accused Mandelson of taking and never giving. The only sin in this world is to not understand that the value in relationships is that favours are to be appreciated and returned.
Female victims, the law, the public, are all remote and potentially treacherous things that need to be kept as far as possible from infringing on this vast, self-contained and sophisticated reciprocal system of power. It is only by understanding the Epstein network as one designed to circumvent the rules and shield its members from them through mutual reinforcement that the real nature of what happened in Downing Street when Mandelson was appointed becomes clear.
Head of firm founded by Mandelson to quit after Epstein releases | BBC News |
Global Counsel employs more than 100 people and has offices in Berlin, Brussels, Singapore, Washington DC and Doha. Last year it reported a revenue of £21.6m and an annual profit of £250,000.
Clients over the years have included US tech company Palantir Vodafone and JP Morgan. It is understood that Barclays has cut ties with the company.
Wegg-Prosser has been a close associate of Lord Mandelson since the 1990s when he was one of the then-Labour politician's key advisers.
In 2005, he was appointed as director of Downing Street's strategic communications unit under Tony Blair.
Tories demand probe into Keir Starmer's meeting with tech giant Palantir - a client of Peter Mandelson's lobbying firm - ahead of it winning £240m defence contract | Daily Mail |
Downing Street has refused to say if Sir Keir knew at the time of his visit to Palantir's offices whether Palantir was a client of Global Counsel.
Global Counsel was co-founded by Lord Mandelson and has worked with a roster of clients including Palantir, GSK, Vodafone, OpenAI, TikTok and the Premier League.
The lobbying firm recently announced it had cut ties with Lord Mandelson in the wake of fresh revelations about the peer's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Newly-released documents in the US, known as the 'Epstein files', have revealed further details about Lord Mandelson's relationship with the paedophile financier.
Peter Thiel, a co-founder of Palantir, is also named in the material released by the US Department of Justice and has acknowledged meeting Epstein 'a few times'.
Investment giant KKR ditches Mandelson lobbying firm
KKR, a shareholder in companies such as Travelopia and Flora Food Group, has cut ties with Global Counsel following new revelations about Lord Mandelson's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Sky News learns.
Labour Calls for Starmer to Step Down
Palantir: Peter Thiel's Data-Mining Firm Helps DOGE Build Master Database to Surveil Immigrants | Democracy Now |
