{"id":785035,"date":"2026-02-24T04:14:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T04:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/785035\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T04:14:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T04:14:17","slug":"former-uk-ambassador-peter-mandelson-released-on-bail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/785035\/","title":{"rendered":"Former UK ambassador Peter Mandelson released on bail"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Police in Britain said Peter Mandelson, the former U.K. ambassador to the United States, has been released on bail after he was arrested in a misconduct probe stemming from his ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>. It came days after a friendship with Epstein landed the former Prince Andrew in police custody.<\/p>\n

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said in a statement issued just after 2 a.m. Tuesday: \u201cA 72-year-old man arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office has been released on bail pending further investigation.<\/p>\n

The man was not named, in keeping with British police practice, but the suspect in the case previously was identified as the former diplomat, who is 72. Mandelson was filmed being led from his London home to a car by plainclothes officers on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Both Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor<\/a>, the former Prince Andrew, are suspected of improperly passing U.K. government information to the disgraced U.S. financier, and the high-profile British arrests are some of the most dramatic fallout from the trove of more than 3 million pages<\/a> of Epstein-related documents released last month by the U.S. Justice Department.<\/p>\n

Claims of leaked government information<\/p>\n

Police are investigating Mandelson over claims he passed sensitive government information to Epstein a decade and a half ago. He does not face allegations of sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n

His arrest came four days after Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested in a separate case on suspicion of a similar offense related to his friendship with Epstein. He was released after 11 hours in custody while the police investigation continues.<\/p>\n

Mandelson served in senior government roles under previous Labour governments and was U.K. ambassador to Washington until Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired him in September<\/a> after emails were published showing that he maintained a friendship with Epstein after the financier\u2019s 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving a minor.<\/p>\n

The files released in January contained more explosive revelations about Mandelson\u2019s ties to Epstein, whom he once called \u201cmy best pal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Messages suggest that Mandelson passed on sensitive \u2014 and potentially market-moving \u2014 government information to Epstein in 2009, when Mandelson was a senior minister in the British government. That includes an internal government report discussing ways the U.K. could raise money after the 2008 global financial crisis, including by selling off government assets. Mandelson also appears to have told Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a tax on bankers\u2019 bonuses.<\/p>\n

British police launched a criminal probe earlier this month and searched Mandelson\u2019s two houses<\/a> in London and western England.<\/p>\n

The decision to appoint Mandelson nearly cost Starmer his job<\/a> earlier this month, as questions swirled around his judgment about someone who has flirted with controversy during a decades-long political career.<\/p>\n

Though he acknowledged he made a mistake and apologized to victims of Epstein, Starmer\u2019s position remains precarious<\/a>. His future may rest on the release of files connected to Mandelson\u2019s appointment. The government has pledged to begin releasing those documents in early March, though the timeline may be complicated by his arrest.<\/p>\n

Mandelson a contentious figure<\/p>\n

Mandelson has been a major, if contentious, figure in the center-left Labour Party for decades. He is a skilled \u2014 critics say ruthless \u2014 political operator whose mastery of political intrigue earned him the nickname \u201cPrince of Darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grandson of former Labour Cabinet minister Herbert Morrison, he was an architect of the party\u2019s return to power in 1997 as centrist, modernizing \u201cNew Labour\u201d under Prime Minister Tony Blair.<\/p>\n

Mandelson served in senior government posts under Blair between 1997 and 2001, and under Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2008 to 2010. In between, he was the European Union\u2019s trade commissioner. Brown has been particularly angered by the revelations and has been helping police with their inquiries.<\/p>\n

Mandelson twice had to resign from government during the Blair administration over allegations of financial or ethical impropriety, acknowledging mistakes but denying wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

He later returned to government and was back on the political front line when Starmer named him ambassador to Washington at the start of U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s second term. Mandelson\u2019s trade expertise and comfort around the ultra-rich were considered major assets. He helped secure a trade deal in May that spared Britain some of the tariffs Trump has imposed on countries around the world.<\/p>\n

The status of the deal is now up in the air after Trump announced a new set of global tariffs in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision quashing his previous import tax order.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month Mandelson resigned from the House of Lords, Parliament\u2019s upper chamber, to which he was appointed for life in 2008. But he still has the title \u2014 Lord Mandelson \u2014 that went with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Police in Britain said Peter Mandelson, the former U.K. ambassador to the United States, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[173775,748,32,393,4179,228766,4884,228767,2204,807,1144,28300,712,27005,16,15,11654,1764,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-785035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-andrew-mountbatten-windsor","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-gord-brown","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-herbert-morrison","18":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","19":"tag-keir-starmer","20":"tag-northern-ireland","21":"tag-peter-mandelson","22":"tag-scotland","23":"tag-tony-blair","24":"tag-uk","25":"tag-united-kingdom","26":"tag-united-kingdom-government","27":"tag-wales","28":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116123668762254144","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}