The Fall of the Viceroy of Darkness: Mandelson’s Washington Misadventure

The sudden and dramatic fall of Peter Mandelson, Britain’s Ambassador to Washington, carries the weight of a tragicomedy. For decades, Mandelson has been a figure of notoriety, earning his enduring nickname — the “Prince of Darkness.” His political skills were never in doubt; his judgment, always. This week, the shock of his downfall reverberated through political circles, as judgment finally caught up with him.

The immediate cause of his dismissal is straightforward: the emergence of fresh evidence of Mandelson’s warm words and sympathetic correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein, even after Epstein’s 2008 conviction. These were not mere casual exchanges, but letters that strike at the heart of moral decency: expressions of friendship, support, and attempts to manipulate. For a man entrusted to represent Britain in Washington, the moral transgression was intolerable. Starmer had no choice but to sever ties.

But Mandelson’s collapse is also a parable about hubris. His political career has constantly been lubricated by proximity to wealth and power. His legendary ability to “suck up to plutocrats” was treated for years as a sort of dark art — distasteful but helpful. As long as the plutocrats were merely wealthy and venal, he could get away with it. With Epstein, the line became unbridgeable.

I saw Mandelson in New Delhi last year at the Raisina Dialogue, well before he was handed the gilded sinecure of Washington. He was strutting about like a pompous colonial viceroy, as if plucked directly from the pages of a Rudyard Kipling novel. While most delegates mingled, Mandelson carried himself as if the future of empire rested on his shoulders — or perhaps on his well-tailored lapels. That air of entitlement, that theatrical hauteur, explains why he was always a dangerous choice for such a sensitive diplomatic post.

Washington demands an ambassador with discretion, humility, and the ability to build trust in both directions. Mandelson, however, embodied the opposite: a cult of personality, a hunger for elite approval, and a knack for turning every setting into a stage for his own self-importance. A left version of Trump? While this might have worked in the court politics of New Labour, it was a dangerous liability in the face of a hostile press corps and a U.S. establishment averse to scandal and British meddling.

His departure will be framed by allies as unfortunate but necessary, and by enemies as overdue punishment. Both can be true. Mandelson’s defenders will argue that Epstein ensnared half the global elite in his orbit. Perhaps. But it takes a special kind of blindness — or arrogance — to keep corresponding with a convicted sex offender as though the old party never ended.

For Starmer, the episode is not just embarrassing; it is self-inflicted. His decision to parachute Mandelson into Washington was an indulgence — a sentimental appointment of a New Labour relic whose career has been defined by scandal. Now it has blown up in his face. He has no one to blame but himself.

And this comes at the worst possible moment. Starmer already presides over a weak cabinet at a time when Britain needs clarity, strength and direction. The credibility of his government is now leaking away, drip by drip, in front of allies and adversaries alike. India, in particular, will be watching closely to see whether Britain can muster seriousness or whether Starmer will be left scraping the barrel for Pakistani lovers and Khalistani sympathisers to fill the ranks.

The Prince of Darkness has fallen, but it is Sir Keir Starmer who now stands exposed at his weakest.