How Mandelson appointment nearly cost Starmer his job as UK prime minister
- Posted on February 10, 2026
- By AOL
- 3 Views
How Mandelson appointment nearly cost Starmer his job as UK prime minister
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has faced the biggest crisis of his leadership because of his decision to appoint a close ally of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to the plum job of U.K. ambassador to the United States. Many warned him not to appoint Peter Mandelson, a 72-year-old grandee of the Labour Party, to the job. Starmer, who never met Epstein, accepts that Mandelson's appointment was a mistake, and has apologized to Epstein's victims as well as to Labour and the country as a whole.