September 12, 2025 • 11 mins
The UK's Prime Minister is facing growing questions over what he knew about Peter Mandelson's relationship with Jeffery Epstein when he appointed him as Ambassador to the US. Keir Starmer fired him after Bloomberg published a series of emails between Mandelson and the convicted paedophile.
The departure comes at a difficult time for the British government as it prepares to host a state visit for US President Donald Trump who continues to face questions about his relationship with Epstein. In this Special episode of the Daybreak Europe podcast our finance reporter Harry Wilson takes us behind the scenes of the Bloomberg scoop. He tells us what the emails reveal alongside our political correspondent Ellen Milligan who will be covering President Trump's upcoming State Visit.
Hosted by Stephen Carroll and Caroline Hepker
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Mister Speakers, the relationship between the US and the UK
is one of our foremost relationships, and I have confidence
in the ambassador in the role that he is doing.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
That was Prime Minister's questions on Wednesday, with Kirs Starmer
defending Peter Mandelssohn, the UK's ambassador to the US. By Thursday,
we heard this from the Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doherty.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
The emails show mister Speaker that the depth and extent
of Lord Mallison's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different
from that known at the time of his appointment.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Well, those emails published by Bloomberg are deeply revealing of
Mandelsohn's relationship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Today, we're bringing
you the inside story of that scoop and asking what
it means for Kirs Starmer and the labor government. Hello,
you're listening to a special episode of the Bloomberg Daybreak
you at podcast. I'm Caroline and.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I'm Stephen Carroll. Now, this story starts with some eighteen
thousand emails from Jeffrey Epstein's personal Yahoo account, which were
seen by Bloomberg, including many exchanges with Peter Mandelsson, who
was at the time the EU's Trade Commissioner and was
until yesterday, the UK's ambassador to the United States. The
messages show a close personal relationship with the disgraced financier
(01:22):
and exchanges at key moments in the months before he
was imprisoned in mid two thousand and eight. They provoked
a chain of events which led to Mandlson's removal from
his position at a key moment just days from Donald
Trump's visit to the UK.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Well, if you recall, Stephen Peter Mandleson was appointed as
Britain's ambassador to Washington in February. His ties to Epstein
were known then, but Lord Mandleson had previously denied that
they were extensive. However, the emails uncovered by Bloomberg reveal
something different, and that the day before Jeffrey Epstein reported
(01:56):
to a Florida jail this is in June two thousand
and eight, to begin serving time for soliciting sex from
a minor. He received an outraged message from Peter Mandelsson
which included the following quotes, I think the world of
view and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened.
I can still barely understand it. It just could not
(02:19):
happen in Britain. And lastly, your friends stay with you
and love you. Those words and others contained in the
emails mean that Kirs Starman and his advisors now face
growing questions and anger about why Lord Mandelsson was chosen
for this most important of diplomatic roles.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Well, this story was a political bombshell in Westminster, so
that we wanted to talk more about how it came about.
For that were joined by our finance reporter Harry Wilson,
who reported on those emails, and by our political correspondent
Ellen Melligan as well. Harry, I wanted to start with
you and I suppose how this story got started, and
I suppose what you thought when you first saw the
(03:03):
contents of these emails.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I still remember looking at that email. I mean, it
was among the first that I found, and it was
really just as soon as you read it, it was
just I kind of thought, if you've been a Hollywood
scriptwriter imagining like what someone might say inadvisedly to a
convicted pedophile just before they go to jail, I don't
think you'd have come up with words quite as dramatic
(03:27):
as what Lord Manderson had sent. And it was just
I think the overwhelming sense of the closeness between the
two of them, that you know, this was more than
just an association as I think Lord Manderson has described
it in recent days and weeks. This was a seemed
like a deeply personal friendship the two of them had.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
What were the sentences and was that stood out for you?
I mean, this is a huge volume of emails that
you went through. You also sent a long request for
comment to Peter Mandelson regarding this cash of emails and
what the contents of it was what stood out to
you also as you kind of waded through them all.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
There's a whole bunch of us who've been working on this,
and I think, to be honest, amongst all of us,
just as we went through the emails, we got this
kind of sense of I guess how you might describe
it as some kind of quasied lobbying campaign that Lord
Anderson had been on for Epstein in the months before
he went to jail. It was it's kind of like
(04:29):
you sort of imagine, you know, if you had a
friend in peril and he's there sort of almost every week,
checking in with Epstein, making sure he's okay, trying to
kind of find ways of putting potentially in touch with
people who might be able to help him. It's more
than just I guess, a sense of being a moral support.
It's a sense that there's an active level of support there,
(04:50):
and I think that's what really kind of, I guess
surprised us. And then when you see what he actually
sends just the day before Epstein actually goes to it's
really the culmination of a whole months long, I guess
even years long thing in which Mandelsson has been all
the way through this kind of support for Epstein to
(05:12):
an extraordinary degree.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Of course, that expression, I think the world of view
in that email, as you say, the day before Jeffrey
Epstein went to jail, certainly stands out. Talk to us
about the exchanges that you and the team had with
Peter Mandleson before this story was published.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
So the first he learned of our story would have
been on Monday afternoon. We sent her an email to
him at three thirty six in the afternoon on Monday.
It was a very long email. It was nearly two
thousand words long. It contained all the emails that we
were planning to report in full, with the dates of
(05:50):
when they were sent. We explained to him which email
account the emails have been sent from and two and
we then listed about twenty questions to him, just setting
out all the sort of different things that we felt
the emails raised as issues with him and asking him
for comment. And at that point we had planned, you
(06:11):
know it, there was a lot of stuff there, and
in fairness to him, we felt that he should have
a decent amount of times respond so we gave him
til essentially the end of the week to come back
to us. But then I guess events kind of moved
pretty fast. You had the US Congressional Committee come out
later that day with the birthday book, and in there
(06:31):
there was this ten page I guess, how would you
describe it, like a glowing tribute that Mandelson gave to
Epstein in two thousand and three for this extraordinary birthday book,
And that really sort of then from there the sort
of pressure started growing on Manderson, and I think at
that point we were starting to think to ourselves, you know,
(06:54):
we're being overtaken by events here, and particularly then on Tuesday,
there was this growing chorus I think around Lord Mandelsson
in his role as ambassador was it viable. So we
decided then to bring forward actually our deadline for his
response to the next day, and then Wednesday morning was
suddenly out of the blue came this interview that Lord
(07:16):
Mandelsson gave to The Sun in which he started talking about,
obviously the birthday book, saying how much he deeply regretted
his association with Epstein. But then, and obviously to us,
this really stood out when he started saying hinting at
further revelations to come, which to our minds certainly suggested
that he was obviously aware of what we'd sent. And
(07:36):
it was that point we decided to directly go to
him on WhatsApp because at this point we still have
not received any recognition from him that he'd received anything
that we'd sent to him, and so we messaged him
and then it I guess that sort of things that
sort of started spiraling really from there, and we ended
up obviously publishing later that day.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
At this point, I'd like to bring in our political correspondent,
Ellen Milligan to think about this revelation. I mean, these
were letters and support this relationship between Mandelssohn and Epstein
around the time of his conviction for soliciting sex from
a minor. This is the issue for Kirs Starmer, now,
(08:18):
isn't it?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Ellen?
Speaker 3 (08:20):
How damaging do you think this is for the Prime
Minister around his judgment. That's the question that politicians and
others in the country are seeming to put to the
Prime Minister.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Now.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Yeah, it's deeply damaging. And the Prime Minister has suffered
other resignations during his one or so years in office,
including his Deputy Prime Minister over a tax issue recently,
but the sacking of Peter Mandelson is uniquely humiliating because
it was entirely predictable. I mean, this is a politician
(08:53):
who had to resign twice from Tony Blair's government for
his murky relationships with wealthy businessmen. He's a politician whose
friendship with Epstein, including since his two thousand and eight conviction,
was public knowledge. It was raised in the vetting process
we report today when he was made ambassador and the
(09:14):
Prime Minister was warned about this. He was asked about
it by The Financial Times on the week of his appointment,
to which Manderson told the FT to f off. All
these questions have been swirling around Peter Anderson for years,
and what Harry's reporting did was kind of shine new
light on the depths of the relationship, but much of
it was known. And though yes there are questions being
(09:36):
raised now about the Prime Minister's judgment about his Chief
of Stealth, Morgan McSweeney's judgment, who we've reported was a
big advocate for Manderson getting this role, it raises questions
about the vetting process and also questions about the government's
own reasoning for sacking Manderson. I mean, in their statement
(09:56):
they say that the emails that Harry publish showing new
depth and extent to the relationship, in particular the Peter
Anderson suggestion that Epstein's first conviction was wrong. And I
was in the briefing with the Prime Minister's spokesperson yesterday
and we were putting to him, you know that sounds
like you were comfortable with them having a friendship as
long as he thought Epstein was guilty of the crimes.
(10:18):
But now because there's evidence that he thought he was innocent,
that's the thing that's moved to the dial. There are
lots of questions being raised around the judgment of the
Prime Minister.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Now indeed, Ellen will await you're reporting then on what
does happen at that state visit. That is our political correspondent,
Ellen Milligan, and in our studio, our finance reporter Harry
Wilson reporting on those emails revealing that relationship between Peter
Mandelson and the late Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
And you can read more of those stories Epstein's inbox
on the Bloomberg website, on Bloomberg dot comen the terminal
as well, and more on the story behind the story
of Mandelsson's Epstein emails. You find both of those stories
on the Bloomberg website. This is Bloomberg Daybreak Europe, your
morning brief on the stories making news from London to
Wall Street and beyond.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Look for us on your podcast feed every morning, on Apple,
Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
You can also listen live each morning on London Dab Radio,
the Bloomberg Business app, and Bloomberg dot Com.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Our flagship New York station is also available on your
Amazon Alexa devices. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
I'm Caroline Hepka.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And I'm Stephen Carol join us again tomorrow morning for
all the news you need to start your day right
here on Bloomberg Daybreak. Europe
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Mister Speakers, the relationship between the US and the UK
is one of our foremost relationships, and I have confidence
in the ambassador in the role that he is doing.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
That was Prime Minister's questions on Wednesday, with Kirs Starmer
defending Peter Mandelssohn, the UK's ambassador to the US. By Thursday,
we heard this from the Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doherty.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
The emails show mister Speaker that the depth and extent
of Lord Mallison's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different
from that known at the time of his appointment.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Well, those emails published by Bloomberg are deeply revealing of
Mandelsohn's relationship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Today, we're bringing
you the inside story of that scoop and asking what
it means for Kirs Starmer and the labor government. Hello,
you're listening to a special episode of the Bloomberg Daybreak
you at podcast. I'm Caroline and.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I'm Stephen Carroll. Now, this story starts with some eighteen
thousand emails from Jeffrey Epstein's personal Yahoo account, which were
seen by Bloomberg, including many exchanges with Peter Mandelsson, who
was at the time the EU's Trade Commissioner and was
until yesterday, the UK's ambassador to the United States. The
messages show a close personal relationship with the disgraced financier
(01:22):
and exchanges at key moments in the months before he
was imprisoned in mid two thousand and eight. They provoked
a chain of events which led to Mandlson's removal from
his position at a key moment just days from Donald
Trump's visit to the UK.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Well, if you recall, Stephen Peter Mandleson was appointed as
Britain's ambassador to Washington in February. His ties to Epstein
were known then, but Lord Mandleson had previously denied that
they were extensive. However, the emails uncovered by Bloomberg reveal
something different, and that the day before Jeffrey Epstein reported
(01:56):
to a Florida jail this is in June two thousand
and eight, to begin serving time for soliciting sex from
a minor. He received an outraged message from Peter Mandelsson
which included the following quotes, I think the world of
view and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened.
I can still barely understand it. It just could not
(02:19):
happen in Britain. And lastly, your friends stay with you
and love you. Those words and others contained in the
emails mean that Kirs Starman and his advisors now face
growing questions and anger about why Lord Mandelsson was chosen
for this most important of diplomatic roles.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Well, this story was a political bombshell in Westminster, so
that we wanted to talk more about how it came about.
For that were joined by our finance reporter Harry Wilson,
who reported on those emails, and by our political correspondent
Ellen Melligan as well. Harry, I wanted to start with
you and I suppose how this story got started, and
I suppose what you thought when you first saw the
(03:03):
contents of these emails.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I still remember looking at that email. I mean, it
was among the first that I found, and it was
really just as soon as you read it, it was
just I kind of thought, if you've been a Hollywood
scriptwriter imagining like what someone might say inadvisedly to a
convicted pedophile just before they go to jail, I don't
think you'd have come up with words quite as dramatic
(03:27):
as what Lord Manderson had sent. And it was just
I think the overwhelming sense of the closeness between the
two of them, that you know, this was more than
just an association as I think Lord Manderson has described
it in recent days and weeks. This was a seemed
like a deeply personal friendship the two of them had.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
What were the sentences and was that stood out for you?
I mean, this is a huge volume of emails that
you went through. You also sent a long request for
comment to Peter Mandelson regarding this cash of emails and
what the contents of it was what stood out to
you also as you kind of waded through them all.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
There's a whole bunch of us who've been working on this,
and I think, to be honest, amongst all of us,
just as we went through the emails, we got this
kind of sense of I guess how you might describe
it as some kind of quasied lobbying campaign that Lord
Anderson had been on for Epstein in the months before
he went to jail. It was it's kind of like
(04:29):
you sort of imagine, you know, if you had a
friend in peril and he's there sort of almost every week,
checking in with Epstein, making sure he's okay, trying to
kind of find ways of putting potentially in touch with
people who might be able to help him. It's more
than just I guess, a sense of being a moral support.
It's a sense that there's an active level of support there,
(04:50):
and I think that's what really kind of, I guess
surprised us. And then when you see what he actually
sends just the day before Epstein actually goes to it's
really the culmination of a whole months long, I guess
even years long thing in which Mandelsson has been all
the way through this kind of support for Epstein to
(05:12):
an extraordinary degree.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Of course, that expression, I think the world of view
in that email, as you say, the day before Jeffrey
Epstein went to jail, certainly stands out. Talk to us
about the exchanges that you and the team had with
Peter Mandleson before this story was published.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
So the first he learned of our story would have
been on Monday afternoon. We sent her an email to
him at three thirty six in the afternoon on Monday.
It was a very long email. It was nearly two
thousand words long. It contained all the emails that we
were planning to report in full, with the dates of
(05:50):
when they were sent. We explained to him which email
account the emails have been sent from and two and
we then listed about twenty questions to him, just setting
out all the sort of different things that we felt
the emails raised as issues with him and asking him
for comment. And at that point we had planned, you
(06:11):
know it, there was a lot of stuff there, and
in fairness to him, we felt that he should have
a decent amount of times respond so we gave him
til essentially the end of the week to come back
to us. But then I guess events kind of moved
pretty fast. You had the US Congressional Committee come out
later that day with the birthday book, and in there
(06:31):
there was this ten page I guess, how would you
describe it, like a glowing tribute that Mandelson gave to
Epstein in two thousand and three for this extraordinary birthday book,
And that really sort of then from there the sort
of pressure started growing on Manderson, and I think at
that point we were starting to think to ourselves, you know,
(06:54):
we're being overtaken by events here, and particularly then on Tuesday,
there was this growing chorus I think around Lord Mandelsson
in his role as ambassador was it viable. So we
decided then to bring forward actually our deadline for his
response to the next day, and then Wednesday morning was
suddenly out of the blue came this interview that Lord
(07:16):
Mandelsson gave to The Sun in which he started talking about,
obviously the birthday book, saying how much he deeply regretted
his association with Epstein. But then, and obviously to us,
this really stood out when he started saying hinting at
further revelations to come, which to our minds certainly suggested
that he was obviously aware of what we'd sent. And
(07:36):
it was that point we decided to directly go to
him on WhatsApp because at this point we still have
not received any recognition from him that he'd received anything
that we'd sent to him, and so we messaged him
and then it I guess that sort of things that
sort of started spiraling really from there, and we ended
up obviously publishing later that day.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
At this point, I'd like to bring in our political correspondent,
Ellen Milligan to think about this revelation. I mean, these
were letters and support this relationship between Mandelssohn and Epstein
around the time of his conviction for soliciting sex from
a minor. This is the issue for Kirs Starmer, now,
(08:18):
isn't it?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Ellen?
Speaker 3 (08:20):
How damaging do you think this is for the Prime
Minister around his judgment. That's the question that politicians and
others in the country are seeming to put to the
Prime Minister.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Now.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Yeah, it's deeply damaging. And the Prime Minister has suffered
other resignations during his one or so years in office,
including his Deputy Prime Minister over a tax issue recently,
but the sacking of Peter Mandelson is uniquely humiliating because
it was entirely predictable. I mean, this is a politician
(08:53):
who had to resign twice from Tony Blair's government for
his murky relationships with wealthy businessmen. He's a politician whose
friendship with Epstein, including since his two thousand and eight conviction,
was public knowledge. It was raised in the vetting process
we report today when he was made ambassador and the
(09:14):
Prime Minister was warned about this. He was asked about
it by The Financial Times on the week of his appointment,
to which Manderson told the FT to f off. All
these questions have been swirling around Peter Anderson for years,
and what Harry's reporting did was kind of shine new
light on the depths of the relationship, but much of
it was known. And though yes there are questions being
(09:36):
raised now about the Prime Minister's judgment about his Chief
of Stealth, Morgan McSweeney's judgment, who we've reported was a
big advocate for Manderson getting this role, it raises questions
about the vetting process and also questions about the government's
own reasoning for sacking Manderson. I mean, in their statement
(09:56):
they say that the emails that Harry publish showing new
depth and extent to the relationship, in particular the Peter
Anderson suggestion that Epstein's first conviction was wrong. And I
was in the briefing with the Prime Minister's spokesperson yesterday
and we were putting to him, you know that sounds
like you were comfortable with them having a friendship as
long as he thought Epstein was guilty of the crimes.
(10:18):
But now because there's evidence that he thought he was innocent,
that's the thing that's moved to the dial. There are
lots of questions being raised around the judgment of the
Prime Minister.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Now indeed, Ellen will await you're reporting then on what
does happen at that state visit. That is our political correspondent,
Ellen Milligan, and in our studio, our finance reporter Harry
Wilson reporting on those emails revealing that relationship between Peter
Mandelson and the late Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
And you can read more of those stories Epstein's inbox
on the Bloomberg website, on Bloomberg dot comen the terminal
as well, and more on the story behind the story
of Mandelsson's Epstein emails. You find both of those stories
on the Bloomberg website. This is Bloomberg Daybreak Europe, your
morning brief on the stories making news from London to
Wall Street and beyond.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Look for us on your podcast feed every morning, on Apple,
Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
You can also listen live each morning on London Dab Radio,
the Bloomberg Business app, and Bloomberg dot Com.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Our flagship New York station is also available on your
Amazon Alexa devices. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
I'm Caroline Hepka.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And I'm Stephen Carol join us again tomorrow morning for
all the news you need to start your day right
here on Bloomberg Daybreak. Europe
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