There are all kinds of s***s in politics, but the title of Pope of Poop must go to the appalling Lord Peter Mandelson.
Over the decades, he has been forced out of every major political position he has ever held, and each time, presumably because Labour loves a devious s**t, he has greased his way back into public life.
The last job he was fired from was as Ambassador to the United States, as emails were published showing his association with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was much closer than he had previously admitted. He continues to strenuously deny that he had knowledge of Epstein’s activities despite their association.
That was only five months ago, and you would have thought after that he would find a cave somewhere in Afghanistan and leave us all alone.
But no. The lure of the spotlight proves too strong.
As the first step back into the spotlight, he wrote an article for the Spectator on Friday. Why on earth would editor Lord Michael Gove think anything by Mandelson was appropriate for his right-of-centre readers is beyond me? A misjudgement.
And then yesterday he appeared on Laura Kuensberg’s political show on the BBC in which, unbelievably, he explains that because he was gay, he was kept in the dark about Epstein’s paedophile proclivities.
What an absurd defence. Perhaps he should have explained to the viewers – if he had only been asked by Kuensberg- why he sent the following email to Epstein while he was in prison: "Your fiends stay with you…and love you.’’
Or in another email, he told Epstein he was his "best pal".
Further messages show the British ambassador urged Epstein to "fight for early release" after accepting a sentence of 18 months for soliciting girls for sex, some as young as 14. That presumably was a big clue. A clue he seemed to ignore.
Lord Mandelson's sexuality is an absurd defence of his association with Epstein - Kelvin MacKenzie
|PA
Quite sickening that he appears to be using the fact that he’s gay as some kind of alibi for ongoing friendship with a sex trafficker. It doesn’t matter what your sexuality is – you either know right from wrong or you don’t.
For his part, he told Laura Kuensberg that while he regrets his association with Epstein, he had no knowledge of his activities and “categorically” had not seen anything when he was with him that gave rise to suspicion.
He also said Epstein’s legal team spent time trying to persuade him of his innocence: “I believed his story and that of his lawyer, who spent a lot of time trying to persuade me of this, because I did go into it, that he had been falsely criminalised in his contact with these young women.”
The truth, as I see it, is that Mandelson is addicted to being at the top table, not least of all because he has a PR company which relies on work coming through his connections.
But the man is flawed. I wish he’d been floored.
Mandelson resigned as a government minister in 1998 for not declaring a loan he obtained from a millionaire colleague. He returned to government the next year, but resigned again in 2001 over claims he used his position to influence a British passport application from a wealthy donor (he was later cleared of any wrongdoing).
Being a natural dissembler makes him a fine Socialist, but his deviousness always catches him out, as did his friendship with Epstein.
One can only hope that there’s a Socialist retirement home somewhere which is prepared to take Mandelson in, as even Labour are surely not that hard up, they will give him a fourth chance in public life.