How the Prince of Darkness Became His Excellency

“I’m a fighter… not one to give up!”, roared 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 after being accused of helping an Indian billionaire obtain a British passport.

He was later cleared of involvement in an official investigation but this was the second time he was forced to step down.

Mandelson had previously resigned as Business Secretary after it emerged that he had borrowed a large sum of money from a fellow cabinet minister to buy a house.

Peter Mandelson and headlines have been going hand-in-hand for a long time.

Jump forward 25 years and Lord Mandelson (as he is now) will going to get accommodation soon at the grand and recently renovated British Embassy in Washington DC, where he will be introduced as “His Excellency” as per traditional occasions.

It’s a far cry from Hartlepool in the industrial north-east of England, and another political coup for a Labor politician who always seems to be fighting for the next break.

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

You will get a lot of solace from the Ambassador of Washington.

In the mid-1980s, when Labor was in recession, Mandelson became the party’s campaign director and began an internal battle to move the party back to the left under the leadership of Neil Kinnock.

By 1992 he was elected as an MP and then played a covert role (with the codename “Bobby”) in helping Tony Blair regain the Labor leadership.

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

Fixing, manipulating and plotting behind the scenes, the spin doctor who seemed to revel in his nickname, the “Prince of Darkness.”

In the center of New Labour, he was revered by fans and viewed by many on the left as a villain.

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

Among those roles he was promoted to the House of Lords and spent four years as EU Trade Commissioner.

It is political experience, as the world prepares for a second Trump presidency and the threat of global tariffs on imports into the United States, that the No. 10 judge will be valuable.

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

With China, Ukraine and the future of NATO all potential policy friction areas, this will not be a quiet posting.

As the UK’s person in Washington DC, Lord Mandelson will have full access to the Trump team.

He will be expected to charm and appease the incoming administration at a potentially extremely delicate time for US/UK relations.

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

In the years since his retreat from frontline politics, he has made a lot of money through the consulting firm he co-founded, Global Counsel.

But his relationships and friendships with the world’s super rich have also come under scrutiny.

In 2008 Lord Mandelson’s links with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska brought him back to the front pages.

In 2023, his former friendship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein hit the headlines,

A spokesman for the Labor peer said: “Lord Mandelson deeply regrets having known Epstein.

“This relationship has been a matter of public record for some time. She had no professional or business relationship with Epstein in any form.”

Lord Mandelson is no burden-free choice for a major diplomatic assignment.

Following Labour’s general election victory, many Blair-era figures have returned to the center of power. At least Jonathan Powell, Mr Blair’s former chief of staff 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 center of Labour’s ruling family.

Lord Mandelson will be a bridge between a President and a Prime Minister who seem far apart temperamentally and politically.

Outgoing British Ambassador Karen Pierce is known as the “Trump whisperer” in Washington because of her close contacts with the incoming president’s team.

After decades of whispering in the corridors of Westminster, Lord Mandelson will soon bring his political acumen to the court of Donald Trump.