Lord Peter Mandelson has been named as the Government’s choice for Britain’s new ambassador to the United States.
After a long, and often tumultuous, career in UK politics, the Labour grandee was the controversial pick for the high profile job.
Dubbed the “Prince of Darkness” over his ruthless behind the scenes political manoeuvring during his years as Tony Blair’s spin doctor, the 71-year-old will become an important link between Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and the President at a crucial time for US-UK diplomacy.
But as someone who is staunchly anti-Brexit and who supports more cooperation with China, he is seen by some as the riskier choice to take on the role in Donald Trump’s Washington.
Mandelson was dubbed the “Prince of Darkness” during his years as Tony Blair’s spin doctor (PA Archive)
Who is Peter Mandelson?
Born in Hendon in 1953 Lord Mandelson grew up in the leafy Hampstead Garden Suburb in Barnet, where he attended the Hendon County Grammar School and acted with local amateur theatre group, the Hampstead Garden Suburb Dramatic Society.
On his mother Mary’s side, he is the grandson of Herbert Morrison, a former London County Council leader who held a number of senior cabinet positions under Clement Attlee and organised Labour’s victorious 1945 election campaign.
Mandelson’s father George’s family were Jewish and helped found the Harrow United Synagogue, while his father was the advertising manager at The Jewish Chronicle newspaper.
As a teenager he joined the Young Communist League and would sell copies of the Morning Star outside Kilburn Tube Station.
Peter Mandelson, right, with John Prescott, centre, and Neil Kinnock at London’s Festival Hall after Labour’s election victory in 1997 (PA Archive)
“I went into it for social reasons,” he told an Institute of Public Policy Research meeting. “I followed someone in – I just thought love would blossom.”
But his politics moved more to the centre ground after studying at St Catherine’s College, Oxford.
He has lived with his husband Reinaldo Avila da Silva, a Brazilian translator, since March 1998 and the pair married last year.
Early Years in Politics
In 1979 Mandelson elected as a Labour councillor in Lambeth, where Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeny and Environment Secretary Steve Reed also their cut their teeth.
Once recalling his time at the town hall he described the borough’s then leader “Red” Ted Knight as having an attitude that was “No compromise with the electorate.”
He stood down in 1982, saying he was disillusioned with the state of Labour politics and the far left council.
Three years later then Labour leader Neil Kinnock appointed him the party’s director of communications. Labour lost the 1987 election to Margaret Thatcher’s Tories, but they picked up a number of seats and won praise for a slicker media operation, which included commissioning Chariots of Fire director Hugh Hudson to make a party political broadcast film.
Mandelson’s status as a political heavyweight had begun.
As an MP, Cabinet Minister and Lord
In 1990 he was selected as the Labour candidate for Hartlepool and won the safe seat at the general election two years later.
During his time in opposition, Mandelson grew close to two then shadow cabinet members – Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.
After the death of John Smith in 1994, Mandelson backed Blair over Brown to become the new Labour leader and played a leading role in the future Prime Minister’s campaign.
Mandelson was put in charge of the Millennium Dome project
He was then made director of campaigns, helping forge the party’s landslide 1997 general election victory and helped to craft crafting New Labour’s modernising image.
Mandelson was rewarded with a “minister without portfolio” role, prompting his critics in the party to dub him “minister without a job”. However, he was handed responsibility for the ill-fated Millennium Dome.
In July 1998, he was appointed as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, later serving as Northern Ireland Secretary and then Business Secretary under Gordan Brown.
He was inducted into the House of Lords in 2008. He is also honorary president of the Great Britain-China Centre, a non-departmental Foreign Office body which is dedicated to UK relations with China.
In 2021, he was the only Labour peer to vote against an amendment aimed at calling out alleged genocide by the Chinese government in Xinjiang province. These views put him at odds with Trump, who has already appointed China hawks to senior positions in his top team.
Scandals
Cabinet colleague Geoffrey Robinson lent Mandelson £373,000 in 1996 so he could buy a Notting Hill home. However, the millionaire’s business dealings were subject to an inquiry by Mandelson’s own government department.
He was forced to resign as Trade Secretary in December 1998 when the loan, and him not properly declaring it, came to light .
But just 10 months later he was back in the Cabinet as the Northern Ireland Secretary. This too was a short-lived post. In January 2001, he again resigned from government when it was revealed he had used his influence to broker a British passport for a £1million donor to the Millennium Dome.
Lord Mandelson (PA Archive)
Mandelson insisted that he had done nothing improper, but accepted that he had not been entirely truthful with the Prime Minister about his intervention in the application for naturalisation by wealthy Indian businessman Srichand Hinduja.
In recent years Mandelson’s past links with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who referred to him as “Petie,” were also revealed.
A 2019 internal report on Epstein by JP Morgan bank, which was revealed in court proceedings, found that Epstein appeared to “maintain a particularly close relationship with Prince Andrew the Duke of York and Lord Peter Mandelson”.
He also had a close relationship with the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
