Caught with his pants down, Lord Mandelson clearly thinks scandal is for little people

The former ambassador to the US is so entitled that he clearly believes shrugging off this kind of massive reputational damage is merely a game to be played, says Sean O’Grady

Peter Mandelson always said he was a fighter and not a quitter. He still thinks it.

A few weeks ago, when more of the Labour peer’s “yum, yum” correspondence with his “best friend” Jeffrey Epstein came to light, Mandelson maintained that he’d done nothing wrong aside from being too trusting of Epstein; he said that he shouldn’t have been sacked as ambassador – and that he was not going away. He told Laura Kuenssberg: “Well, who knows what’s next, I don’t know what’s next, but I’m not going to go and just sort of disappear and hide; that’s not me. I will find something useful to do – I don’t know what it is, and no doubt it will take some time to discover.”

In his most recent statement about his future – an astonishingly defiant interview with The Times, albeit before some of the most damaging documents emerged from the Epstein files – Mandelson is just as combative: “Hiding under a rock would be a disproportionate response to a handful of misguided historical emails, which I deeply regret sending. If it hadn’t been for the emails, I’d still be in Washington. Emails sent all those years ago didn’t change the relationship that I had with this monster. I feel the same about the recent download of Epstein files, none of which indicate wrongdoing or misdemeanour on my part.”

The arrogance is, in the objective sense of the word, awesome. There is a feeling with Mandelson, and there always has been, that he believes scandals are for the little people – that even if not immune, he is at least invincible, even immortal. He just regenerates any bits of his reputation that have been lost.

He’s a bit like the knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Breaking the ministerial code and conspiring against cabinet colleagues? “Merely a flesh wound.” Resigning from the Labour Party? Just a “reset”.

Think about it. He’s excessively kind about Donald Trump, even backing the US president’s mad plan to take over Greenland. Does he see his future redemption in the States? Mandelson says, with stunning chutzpah, “I think I want a sea change. I want to be more of an outsider looking in rather than the other way round. I want to contribute ideas that enable Britain to strengthen and to work for all, in every part of the country.” What does that mean? Pundit, podcaster and newspaper columnist? Some job with a worthy quango? If he gets prosecuted for something and goes to jail, what will he do when he gets out? Become a prisons campaigner?

Most of Mandelson’s time in public life has comprised a series of remarkable Lazarus-like recoveries. His first fall from grace was quiet and unspectacular. It came just after he arrived in the Commons in 1992, when John Smith had replaced Neil Kinnock, who’d appointed Mandelson to transform the Labour Party’s image. Smith had little time for what he called “the dark arts” that Mandelson was so adept at, and banished him to drudgery in the whips’ office.

After Smith died, Mandelson (operating under the pseudonym Bobby, such was the suspicion he provoked) backed Tony Blair rather than Gordon Brown for the leadership. He was duly appointed a minister when New Labour (which Mandelson had done much to create) won power in 1997.

‘For decades now, shame has indeed been for smaller, less brilliant politicians than him’ (PA)

Soon after, of course, he had to resign, over an undisclosed home loan from a wealthy cabinet minister. It was on the day before Christmas Eve in 1998. The Sun stuck a picture of his head on a roast turkey with the headline: “Stuffed!”

Not for long, mind. Blair brought him back as a cabinet minister 10 months later, in the role of Northern Ireland secretary, where his Machiavellian skills came in handy. But he had to quit that role, too, in 2001, following accusations that he’d improperly used his influence to secure British passports for the billionaire Hinduja brothers, who’d helped fund the Millennium Dome project, which Mandelson was once responsible for (he may have been wronged on that one, by the way). Blocked from a third comeback, he went for a well-paid spell as an EU commissioner.

Even the arrival of Brown (by then a sworn enemy of “Mandy”) as Blair’s successor didn’t quite spell the end for his ambitions back home. To much surprise, Brown, his administration badly foundering by 2008, rehabilitated Mandelson. He was given his peerage, made de facto deputy prime minister, and placed in charge of winning the 2010 general election, which proved to be beyond him. Unabashed, Mandelson tried and almost succeeded in getting David Cameron to make him Britain’s ambassador to Washington.

Semi-detached at best during Ed Miliband’s leadership, and obviously under Jeremy Corbyn, there appeared to be no hope of another political bounceback. But, through a new alliance with Keir Starmer’s aide Morgan McSweeney, Mandelson achieved his longstanding goal, went to Washington, and executed his umpteenth against-all-odds revival.

Somehow, he succeeded in persuading Trump that he was genuinely contrite about having previously described him as “little short of a white nationalist and racist”, “reckless”, and “a danger to the world”.

In due course, Mandelson ate these spiky words with self-parodic aplomb: “I think people have been impressed, not just by the extraordinary second mandate that he has received from the American people, but [by] the dynamism and energy with which he approached not just the campaign but government as well. I think that he has won fresh respect. He certainly has from me, and that is going to be the basis of all the work I do as His Majesty’s ambassador in the United States.”

For decades now, shame has indeed been for smaller, less brilliant politicians than Mandelson, and he has looked upon “disgrace” as an occupational hazard, and in any case an artificial construct. His motto is: “My name is Peter Mandelson and I cannot be disgraced. Look upon my works, and despair!”

Every sacking is regarded as just another challenge (perhaps not the only trait he shares with Boris Johnson). He may not be Baron Mandelson for much longer, but his more valuable titles are “Prince of Darkness” and “Comeback King”. His instinctive reaction to each of his many downfalls has been: “How do I get out of this one?” We’d love to know what the current plan might be.