Peter Mendelssohn: How the Prince of Darkness Became His Excellence

“I’m a fighter.. not a quitter,” thundered Peter Mandelson at the Hartlepool election count in 2001.

The then Labor MP returned to Parliament just five months after resigning from Tony Blair’s government, accused of helping an Indian billionaire obtain a British passport.

A government inquiry later cleared him of involvement but this was the second time he was forced to resign.

Mandelson had previously resigned as trade secretary after it emerged that he had borrowed enough money to buy a house from a fellow cabinet minister.

Peter Mendelson and headline news have long gone hand in hand.

Spool will jump forward 25 years and Lord Mendelsohn (as he now is) will. Will take up residence soon. at the magnificent and recently renovated British Embassy in Washington DC, where he will be introduced as “His Excellency” on state occasions, as is customary.

It’s a long way from Hartlepool, in post-industrial north-east England, and another political renaissance for a Labor politician who always seems to be fighting for the next break.

He recently campaigned hard for the chancellorship of Oxford University but was defeated by former Conservative leader Lord Hague last month.

The ambassador from Washington will be very comforted.

In the mid-1980s, with Labor disillusioned, Mandelson became the party’s campaign director and began an internal battle to push the party back to the left under Neil Knick.

By 1992 he had been elected as an MP and then played an undercover role (under the code name “Bobby”) in helping Tony Blair secure the Labor leadership.

His reputation as a Svengali-like operator was already well established.

Fixing, schmoozing and scheming behind the scenes, the spin doctor seemed to relish his nickname, the “Prince of Darkness”.

In the New Labor core, he was revered by admirers and seen as a villain by many on the left.

In government he was Trade Secretary in Tony Blair’s first administration and Business Secretary under Gordon Brown.

Between these roles he was promoted to the House of Lords and spent four years as EU trade commissioner.

It’s political experience the No. 10 judges will value as the world prepares for a second Trump presidency and the threat of global tariffs on imports to the United States.

One of the most pro-European members of the new Labor government, Lord Mandelson will also help shape a British foreign policy that seeks closer ties with the EU while supporting President Trump.

It will not be a silent posting in all areas of potential policy friction with China, Ukraine and the future of NATO.

As Britain’s man on the ground in Washington DC, Lord Mandelson will have access to the Trump team.

He will be expected to woo the incoming administration at a potentially critical time for US/UK relations.

Lord Mandelson is tight-lipped about his network of contacts and Downing Street sees this as a plus.

In the years since he retired from front-line politics, he has made a lot of money through the advisory firm he co-founded, Global Council.

But his connections and friendships with the world’s richest men have also come under scrutiny.

In 2008, Lord Mendelson’s links with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska returned him to the front pages.

In 2023, her former friendship with notorious financier Jeffrey Epstein Hit the headlines.

A Labor Monday spokesman said: “Lord Mandelson is very sorry to have been introduced to Epstein.

“This relationship has been a matter of public record for some time. He never had any professional or business relationship with Epstein.”

Lord Mendelssohn is not an unencumbered choice for a major diplomatic job.

Since Labour’s general election victory, several figures from the Blair era have returned to the center of power. Not least Mr Blair’s former chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, who is now Britain’s national security adviser.

In Lord Mandelson, Sir Keir Starmer has chosen a political figure rather than a diplomat or career civil servant and Donald Trump will find himself dealing with a man at the heart of Labour’s governing family.

Lord Mandelson would be a bridge between a president and a prime minister who seem miles apart in temperament and politics.

Outgoing British ambassador Karen Pearce is known in Washington as “Trump’s whisperer” because of her close ties to the incoming president’s team.

After decades of whispering in the corridors of Westminster, Lord Mendelsohn will soon offer his political tricks to the court of Donald Trump.