‘Where r u? I miss you’: how vivid new Epstein emails sealed Mandelson’s fate | Peter Mandelson

It was the evening of May 6, 2010, and months after being released from prison for procuring children for prostitution, Jeffrey Epstein was wondering about the outcome of the general election in England.

“Well?” He emailed Peter Mandelson, then de facto deputy prime minister in Gordon Brown’s government.

Twenty minutes later and a few hours before the polls closed, Mandelson replied: “We pray for a hung parliament. The alternative is a well-executed young man.”

In an interview with the BBC last month in what appeared to be an attempt at rehabilitation following his sacking as US ambassador amid new revelations about his ties to Epstein, Mandelson insisted he was “on the brink of this man’s life”.

If the implication is that he was unimportant to Epstein, this is debatable. But some of the millions of new emails released by the US justice department appear to make clear that Epstein was at the heart of Mandelson’s world for several years.

Taken together, his resignation from the Labor Party and calls for a police investigation seem like an epitaph for a politician who may have ended up with a scandal he could not escape.

Mandelson’s relationship with the financier was professional and personal, even intimate; The boundaries between the two were vanishingly blurry.

When her Labor Party colleague believed her then-partner and now-husband Reinaldo Avila da Silva had accessed her text messages in March 2010, it was Epstein she turned to for help.

“I had a bad setback with R, who somehow got into my messages,” wrote Mandelson, who was already number two in the UK government at the time. “What should I do? You might need help. How does he see them?”

Epstein responded: “That email was probably compromised too, let’s talk.”

It was again Epstein’s advice that he sought when he was buying a new house and considering whether he should borrow £4 million at a 3% interest rate.

Later, when Labor lost the 2010 election, there were consultations on how to build his business career. He asked if joining the Facebook board would be a good move. In July 2011, he wondered, “Is there an agreement(s) yet?” he asked.

Epstein responded: “I spent the day in Seattle having a blast with Gates.”

It was an intense friendship in every respect.

“I need to talk, I’m feeling confused,” Mandelson wrote in April 2009. On December 22, 2010, he sent an email saying, “Where are you? I miss you.”

The revelations about the extent of this relationship in recent months have cost Mandelson the job he loves and the status he craves. On Monday, the most damning email ever was made public.

Mandelson appears to have leaked a sensitive Whitehall document to Epstein, who was still under house arrest at the time, detailing the UK government’s tax plans and its intention to sell £20bn of assets.

He forwarded the document in June 2009 with the following comment: “Interesting note to the Prime Minister.”

Emails had already emerged over the weekend suggesting Mandelson had received three payments of $25,000 (£18,000) each from Epstein while he was an MP in 2003 and 2004. Others showed his partner received thousands of pounds when he was business secretary in 2009 and 2010.

Mandelson said he did not remember the payments made to him.

Keir Starmer said on Monday he should lose his title and seat in the House of Lords and launched an investigation into his “conduct while he was a government minister”.

Just eight months ago, Mandelson was standing next to Donald Trump in the Oval Office and being complimented on his “beautiful accent” as the US president signed a trade deal that would eliminate “liberation day” tariffs.

How did Epstein come to assume such a central role in Mandelson’s personal and professional life?

In the late 1980s, Mandelson worked as an advisor to media mogul Robert Maxwell, owner of the Daily Mirror.

Maxwell’s daughter Ghislaine, like Mandelson, was a social creature who enjoyed the finer things in life, and they grew to like each other.

She moved to New York in the early 1990s after her father, who stole millions from the Mirror pension scheme, fell off the side of his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, and drowned.

Epstein and Robert Maxwell were colleagues. It seems that a romance has blossomed between the late emperor’s daughter and the young financier.

Mandelson met Epstein around 2001 at a beach house on Martha’s Vineyard owned by Lynn Forester de Rothschild and her husband, Evelyn.

Mandelson, who was still a central figure of the New Labor project despite resigning from the cabinet twice in 1998 and 2001, clearly became close to Epstein by 2003.

Mandelson described Epstein as his “best friend” in the 50th birthday book compiled for him by Maxwell.

In 2008, the year Epstein was convicted, Mandelson was the EU trade commissioner in Brussels.

“You need to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release, and be as philosophical about it as you can,” Mandelson wrote.

The relationship was certainly intact when he returned to the UK to serve as business secretary in the Brown government.

“I had a long dream about you last night,” Mandelson wrote in March 2009. “Today I will go to GM facilities and try to secure their future.”

When further problems arose between Mandelson and his partner in July 2009, it was Epstein who answered the phone.

“I was engrossed in Afghanistan… Thanks for talking to Reinaldo,” Mandelson wrote. “This helped him (and therefore me) a lot. Now you see the problems. I can’t talk to him about these issues at all, he doesn’t listen. I’m appearing in the Sunday media and I’ll call back later. Thank you again xxx”

Epstein responded: “I’m always there.”

Mandelson rose to the role of first secretary in the Brown government in 2010, a position that effectively made him deputy prime minister.

Eleven days later, he wrote a letter to Epstein saying he would be in New York. ‘Shall I stay at your house this weekend Friday-Sunday?’ he asked.

Epstein was concerned about the “matters” of the press. Mandelson responded: “I’m in New York right now [sic]. Be good. Yours has better ‘facilities’.”

Their mutually beneficial friendship did not diminish after the election defeat.

“I need a Lord on the board,” Mandelson asked Epstein in an email at the time.

In another on July 28, 2010, “Are you having fun?” he asked. “Oh my god,” Epstein replied.

In August 2011, Mandelson wrote a letter to Epstein saying he had met Nat Rothschild, son of Jacob and Serena Rothschild of the banking dynasty, at lunch with a mutual friend.

“I mentioned you at lunch and he questioned my comment that you were one of my best friends and said you were the best and smartest people he knew and how much you taught him.” [sic]” he wrote.

In April 2012, Epstein emailed Mandelson. “How are things going?” he asked. Mandelson said he was at the China Boao forum in Hainan, where he was “trying to make an honest living.” “Trying something new,” Epstein replied. “Really,” he replied.