{"id":24499,"date":"2026-04-29T00:20:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T00:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/24499\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T00:20:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T00:20:17","slug":"secrets-and-lies-7-takeaways-from-marathon-mandelson-vetting-hearing-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/24499\/","title":{"rendered":"Secrets and \u2018lies\u2019: 7 takeaways from marathon Mandelson vetting hearing \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Early in the hearing, McSweeney told MPs that he \u201cdidn\u2019t feel\u201d he had got the whole truth back from Mandelson in those three answers. This would be political dynamite, given Starmer pressed ahead anyway. But later in the hearing, McSweeney corrected himself \u2014 saying he acquired these doubts in September, after it emerged Mandelson had been better friends with Epstein than he let on (\u201cit was like a knife through my soul\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t think he had lied [at the time]. I thought he had told the truth, and that was the basis of which I thought we were going ahead,\u201d said McSweeney. \u201cBut I also thought if I was wrong, if he had been lying \u2026 that might be picked up at [developed vetting].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In other words, each part of the system was relying on the other to make a judgment call.<\/p>\n<p>Barton, too, said he was \u201cworried\u201d about Mandelson\u2019s Epstein links and expressed reservations to No. 10 National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell, but added: \u201cThere was no space or avenue or mechanism for me to put that on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barton confirmed Trump\u2019s transition team had voiced concerns too, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/donald-trump-team-intervene-peter-mandelson-appointment-us-uk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">as previously reported by POLITICO<\/a>. \u201cThose around Trump felt blindsided by the announcement at short notice, shall we say,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>3) A political appointment to deal with Brexit damage<\/p>\n<p>Mandelson\u2019s appointment happened after Trump won the November 2024 election. If Kamala Harris had won, suggested McSweeney, Mandelson \u2014 a wily operator known as the \u201cPrince of Darkness\u201d in Westminster \u2014 would not have been appointed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early in the hearing, McSweeney told MPs that he \u201cdidn\u2019t feel\u201d he had got the whole truth back&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[157,7334,956,5034,1360,10987,10988,94,8683,185,5035,460,593,6670,168,5,6,461],"class_list":{"0":"post-24499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-communications","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-due-diligence","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-george-osborne","14":"tag-kamala-harris","15":"tag-keir-starmer","16":"tag-lobbying","17":"tag-parliament","18":"tag-peter-mandelson","19":"tag-security","20":"tag-services","21":"tag-space","22":"tag-trade","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116485136202656077","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}