00:00Britain's former ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, has been released from police custody after being arrested on suspicion
00:07of misconduct in public office.
00:09The 72-year-old was fired from his post in September after the full scope of his relationship with convicted
00:15sex offender Jeffrey Epstein emerged.
00:17For more on this story, we can bring in our International Affairs Editor, Philip Terrell.
00:21Philip, great to see you. Was Mandelson's arrest a shocker?
00:26Yes, I think for many it was, but for Peter Mandelson himself, I don't think he was particularly surprised that
00:34he was arrested yesterday, yesterday afternoon, just a few days after former Prince Andrew, Andrew Mountbatten-Winter, was also arrested
00:43on similar charges, that's to say misconduct in public office.
00:46Now, the charges against Peter Mandelson are pretty grave charges.
00:52One, an internal government report from the UK discussing ways Britain could raise money after the 2008 global financial crisis,
01:01including by selling off government assets, was handed over to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and pedo criminal in the United
01:11States.
01:11The second one appears that Peter Mandelson told Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a
01:18tax on bankers bonuses in favour of Jeffrey Epstein.
01:22The third one is that he's reported to have tipped off Jeffrey Epstein about a 500 billion euro bailout for
01:27the European Union before that was officially announced.
01:30So these are pretty grave charges against Peter Mandelson, similar to the ones that the former Prince Andrew is also
01:37facing about handing over information about precious metals and minerals in Afghanistan and also information about his business trips to
01:45Hong Kong, China, Vietnam and Singapore.
01:48So that's why the two men have been arrested. The police are trying to find out as much information as
01:54they possibly can about what happened.
01:56Emails, there is an inquiry with the government. There is inquiry as far as Andrew Mountbatten-Winter is concerned with
02:02the royal family.
02:03This is a very long, ongoing process, but there has been some movement in the way the government and the
02:10royal family are handling this.
02:12First of all, the royal family has said that it will comply with all the investigations taking part, taking place
02:18and will be not there to try to hinder any police investigation into the former Prince Andrew.
02:24And the government has said it's going to release information about how Peter Mandelson was nominated to the post of
02:32ambassador to the United States by the UK government in December 2024 at a time when Keir Starmer, the prime
02:40minister, already knew about his contacts with Peter Mandelson.
02:44Given that the British justice system is doing its thing, Philip, has pressure, do you think, eased on the prime
02:51minister and those calls for him to step down?
02:54Not really. I think Keir Starmer is under tremendous pressure right now.
02:59He has made some unpopular decisions since he became prime minister of the United Kingdom back in 2024.
03:06And I think that he is feeling the pressure. He's unpopular when it comes down to the opinion polls.
03:13Over 60 percent of British people have an unfavorable opinion of him. Only 18 percent think that he's doing a
03:18good job.
03:19So all of these obstacles caused by Peter Mandelson on one side and former Prince Andrew on the other are
03:26doing nothing to make his ride any easier, especially when it comes to Peter Mandelson, because many questions being asked
03:32about accountability, about transparency.
03:35They want to know why he was nominated by Keir Starmer, what was the relationship that he had with Peter
03:42Mandelson, why he gave him this job when it was known that Mandelson had had contacts with Jeffrey Epstein.
03:48The reply from Keir Starmer is that, well, Peter Mandelson lied to me.
03:53He didn't tell me the extent to which he was friendly with Jeffrey Epstein.
03:56We didn't know that he was calling Jeffrey Epstein his best pal.
04:00And that was why he got the job. But Keir Starmer has lost two of his closest advisers over this
04:06case, notably Morgan McSweeney, who was his director at number 10 Downing Street, who's now gone.
04:13So the firewall of protection around the British prime minister has more or less disappeared, which means that he's now
04:19in the firing line.
04:20And I think there is a lot of pressure on him to release as much information as he possibly can
04:25so that the inquiry can go ahead.
04:27But it doesn't mean that Keir Starmer is out of the woods.
04:29The only positive thing for the British prime minister is that there is no direct challenge to his leadership from
04:36within the Labour Party right now, coming from any particular person.
04:41I don't think anybody really wants to take his place at the moment.
04:44They're sort of thinking it'd be better off if Keir Starmer remained prime minister for the time being.
04:49But there are two important hurdles that he's going to have to overcome.
04:52One of them is a local election this week in Denton, where the Labour Party is expected to do badly.
04:58That was a Labour seat. And also we have local elections coming up in the UK in May, where the
05:04Labour Party is also expected to do not well.
05:07And that may, in fact, be the time when the pressure is so great on Keir Starmer that he stands
05:15down and there could be a leadership challenge and someone else taking over the role of prime minister.
05:20But for the moment, he appears to be pretty much OK in his position of prime minister.
05:25But a lot of explaining has to be done about how he managed to name Peter Mendelsohn ambassador to the
05:32United States without knowing exactly what his relationship was with Jeffrey Epstein when that nomination took place.
05:37We'll see how the story continues to shape up.
05:40Philip, thank you very much for that. Philip Terrell there.
05:42Philip, thank you very much.
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