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Category: Peter Mandelson

  • From Mandelson to the markets: Big Finance’s rule over Britain

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    https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/mandelson-markets-big-finances-rule-over-britain

     Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, September 7, 2001

    The Mandelson scandal reveals a political settlement in which democratic choice is curtailed and the power of markets eclipses the will of voters – only the left can challenge this, writes JON TRICKETT MP

    THE whole Mandelson revelations have been interpreted by the mainstream media through the lens of the appalling paedophilia of Epstein as well as whether or not the PM can survive.

    But there are other truths which ought to be equally the focus of attention.

    For more than a couple of generations, British politics has been conducted beneath the increasingly menacing shadows cast by the towers of concrete and glass in the City of London and around Canary Wharf.

    Buildings that reach for the sky are owned and controlled by global financiers who exercise huge economic leverage. These are the new Masters of the Universe who along with big tech now stride like giants across the global economy. Recent events have cast a light into areas which are largely unseen.

    Viewed from this perspective, we see that the emissaries of Big Finance have successfully penetrated governments of all shades. The revelation of Peter Mandelson’s role as an agent of the moneyed elite is extraordinary now in its transparency.  

    We now know that while the Prince of Darkness was effectively the deputy prime minister, he was funnelling private state information to Epstein the financier. It appears also that the former Prince Andrew was passing information gleaned from his role as trade ambassador.

    We must conclude both that the betrayals now revealed were of extraordinary proportions but equally that it was not an isolated scandal or a matter of a few bad apples. It provides a window into a deeper truth: the systematic capture of democratic government by major corporations and financiers.

    …

    The deeper lesson of Mandelson, and of the ongoing obsession with market “confidence,” is that democracy is not something that disappears overnight. As we see in the US, it  is eroded gradually.

    But it can be challenged. Only the left can do this, because the rest are trapped in a reactionary discourse. Reversing that erosion will require confrontation with power.

    We remember the famous dictum about the political right by Nye Bevan: “How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the 20th century.”  

    Recalling those words we must pose once again Bevan’s question to us on the left which is now urgen: “How can poverty use democracy to challenge the power of wealth?”

    Jon Trickett Labour MP for Normanton and Hemsworth.

    https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/mandelson-markets-big-finances-rule-over-britain dizzy: I recommend reading this analysis by Socialist MP JON TRICKETT.

    Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the "hard times".
    Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.

  • Jonathan Pie: Keir Today! Gone Tomorrow?

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    Peter Mandelson Sold Off Britain to the Super-Rich. He’s Not the Only One

    …

    Here, as in the US, newspapers and broadcasters sit in the hands of billionaires and financiers. Around Westminster, politics and journalism have ceased to be adversaries and become parts of the same social world. Scrutiny softens into familiarity; policy dissolves into gossip; public life shrinks to the drama of personalities.

    The media rarely treats any of this as disqualifying. On the contrary, it admires the fluency: the contacts, the cosmopolitan ease, the glide from Davos to Washington to Whitehall. It looks like sophistication. What it is is capture.

    While this narrow caste circulates between cabinet, consultancy and corporate boards, the country it governs decays: stagnant wages, crumbling public services, foreign takeovers of strategic assets, an economy built on rent and speculation rather than production. Britain grows poorer even as its ruling class grows richer. The state works – efficiently, even brilliantly – for those at the top. For everyone else it pleads constraint.

    Contempt for the governed has always been part of the package. Mandelson’s reported remark that working-class voters “have nowhere else to go” captures the emotional core of this regime: if your base is trapped, you are free to govern for someone else. This is what political scientist Peter Mair diagnosed as “ruling the void”: parties hollowed out, participation collapsing, democracy reduced to ritual while policy converges around the interests of capital. 

    So when we read those emails – a minister apparently passing sensitive state information to a private financier – we should resist the temptation to ask, “How could he?”. If politics has been reduced to managing relationships with wealth, then wealth becomes the real constituency. Everything else is theatre.

    A nation run this way can’t be sovereign. Its secrets leak upward. Its wealth flows outward. And its politics are for sale.

    Keir Starmer discusses the UK Labour Party's tradion of excusing and protecting child rapists.
    Keir Starmer discusses the UK Labour Party’s tradion of excusing and protecting child rapists.
    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves - the very poorest and most vulnerable.
    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.
    Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
    Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
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    Keir Starmer discusses the UK Labour Party's tradion of excusing and protecting child rapists.
    Keir Starmer discusses the UK Labour Party’s tradion of excusing and protecting child rapists.

    ed: No idea why it’s appearing twice, only once in the original post.

  • Privacy for your ‘guests’: Mandelson’s email to Epstein recommending exclusive villa

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    Original article by Simon Lock republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

    Image of Jeffrey Epstein, Peter Mandelson and a waiter

    Redacted email deciphered by TBIJ shows former politician suggesting holiday home for convicted sex offender

    Peter Mandelson emailed Jeffrey Epstein after his release from house arrest to recommend a holiday home where the financier could host his “guests”.

    Mandelson said he had found a villa in Italy that Epstein could use, offering “privacy with accompanying rooms for your ‘guests’” – with quote marks around the word guests.

    It is not clear who this was in reference to. Epstein’s connections among the global elite included bankers, royals and Middle Eastern sheikhs.

    The email was published this week by the US government as part of the Epstein Files cache. Its sender has been redacted but we were able to identify it as coming from Mandelson.

    A spokesperson for Mandelson said: “Lord Mandelson regrets, and will regret until to his dying day, that he believed Epstein’s lies about his criminality. Lord Mandelson did not discover the truth about Epstein until after his death in 2019. He is profoundly sorry that powerless and vulnerable women and girls were not given the protection they deserved.”

    The email chain is from August 2010, a month after Epstein had been released from house arrest following his conviction for child sex offences.

    In the message in question, Mandelson tells Epstein that he is due to arrive back in London from “Myk”, shorthand for the Greek island of Mykonos, at the end of August. He goes on to say: “Found you a great place to stay on the Amalfi coast near to Positano. Zeferelli home converted into beautiful suites and privacy with accompanying rooms for your ‘guests’.”

    While the identity of the sender is blacked out in the published file, other emails from the same period confirm that Mandelson travelled at that time to Mykonos, which he also referred to as “Myk” in separate emails. The email in question was sent from a Blackberry, Mandelson’s favoured method of communication at the time.

    The redaction in the files leaves some parts of the email address visible, and we were able to match it with an address used by Mandelson (see video below).

    The conversation with Epstein took place during a period of frequent contact between the pair following Mandelson’s exit from frontline politics after Labour’s election defeat.

    The men discussed job opportunities for Mandelson, including with mining giant Glencore, investment banks Lazard and Deutsche Bank, and his own advisory firm, Global Counsel.

    The house Mandelson refers to in the email appears to be Villa Treville, an exclusive 16-suite luxury hotel located on a clifftop overlooking the Gulf of Salerno.

    There is no evidence that Epstein ever visited the villa.

    Villa Treville as it appears today

    Lead image: Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein pictured together. Credit: Department of Justice / ZUMA Press Wire / Shutterstock

    Reporter: Simon Lock
    Enablers editor: Eleanor Rose
    Deputy editor: Katie Mark
    Editor: Franz Wild
    Production editor: Alex Hess

    TBIJ has a number of funders, a full list of which can be found here. None of our funders have any influence over editorial decisions or output.

    Original article by Simon Lock republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

    Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosts a business roundtable
    Keir Starmer(R) and his boss Peter Mandelson(L).

    Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosts a business roundtable
    Two Labour Party total s***s, David Lammy and Peter Mandelson.

    CONFIDENTIAL – STRICTLY NOT FOR PUBLICATION: Ipso has asked us to circulate the following advisory:

    Ipso has today been contacted by a representative acting on behalf of Peter Mandelson.

    Mr Mandelson’s representatives state that he does not wish to speak to the media at this time. He requests that the press do not take photos or film, approach, or contact him via phone, email, or in-person. His representatives ask that any requests for his comment are directed to [REDACTED]

    We are happy to make editors aware of his request. We note the terms of Clause 2 (Privacy) and 3 (Harassment) of the Editors’ Code, and in particular that Clause 3 states that journalists must not persist in questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing individuals once asked to desist, unless justified in the public interest.

    Please do not hesitate to contact me to discuss any Code issues on [REDACTED] or out of hours on [REDACTED].

    [IPSO official]

    13.15pm Don’t know why this was not displaying properly.