Starmer has put his head even further into the mouth of Donald Trump
Let no one say that Keir Starmer lacks daring. In appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Donald Trump’s Washington, he has behaved like an apprentice lion tamer in the international circus, thrusting his head even deeper into the mouth of the most ill-tempered and unpredictable beast in his troupe.
There are multiple reasons for expecting the worst.
The first is Mandelson’s long relationship with the Chinese communist régime and frequent defences of its interests against the policies and outlook of Donald Trump. This alone could negate all influence and even access to Trump for Mandelson.
The second is Mandelson’s deep commitment to the EU, which Trump regards as an enemy almost equal to China. He wants to destroy it as a political and economic competitor to his United States and to pre-empt any post-Brexit rapprochement between us and the EU. Mandelson is the last person to cajole him away from these ambitions: he is more likely to inflame them.
Mandelson has given long and well-paid service to the interests of the Putin régime, both personal and through his shadowy consultancy, Global Counsel. This continued well after Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine and long after it was apparent that the Putin economy was founded on corruption, favoritism, extortion and violence. It included personal service to one of Putin’s major defence contractors. This will not matter to Trump but it will offend many remaining American patriots, and it makes Mandelson a poor advocate of collective resistance to Putin over Ukraine or any other issue.
Mandelson had long relationships with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. There are still many questions unanswered about these relationships and with two others in their circle, Prince Andrew and Kevin Spacey: until Mandelson himself provides believable responses this issue will give rich opportunities for American scandalmongers in conventional and online media, and their coverage (and inventions) will crowd out anything Mandelson says about trade or any major issue. Trump will not welcome any revival of media interest in that pair.
Mandelson’s appointment was greeted with immediate condemnation by a group of Epstein’s victims and their lawyer. Others with ongoing grievances against Epstein and Maxwell or any individual or organization who facilitated their crimes could well follow suit.
A minor issue by comparison, but Mandelson will not benefit in American opinion from his past paid service to the chequered German financier Lars Windhorst, whose high-end lingerie firm, La Perla was condemned by its American employees for unpaid wages and rotten working conditions.
At a personal level Mandelson is a very conceited person with a great deal to be modest about. His habitually condescending manner is likely to provoke Americans from Trump upwards. Whether or not Donald Trump makes America great again it will not take long for Mandelson to grate on America.
Mandelson has very mixed relations with British media. Their American counterparts are far more aggressive and intrusive, and he will have no influence over any American journalists’ careers: quite the contrary, they would profit from any exposé of him or any public spat with him.
The very fact that Starmer has made a personal appointment to this post has given Trump even more leverage over him and his government. Starmer and his new ambassador will re-enact the role of Ben Bolt’s sweet Alice whose hair was so brown, and who wept with delight when he gave her a smile and trembled with fear at his frown. Starmer committed himself recently to deepening the so-called “special relationship” with the United States and his personal one with Donald Trump (the latter will need more evidence than a “good” phone call and an extra piece of chicken for David Lammy. Incidentally, did David get the recipe?)
Trump does not “do” special relationships in personal, business or political life. His relationships are politely and jargonistically described as “transactional” and more accurately as abusive. He values people, organizations and whole nations only for what they offer him.
Within hours of Mandelson’s appointment he was publicly insulted (with Trump’s approval) by his campaign manager, the ill-named Mr La Civita. Trump may now seek a price for receiving Mandelson at all and calling off further insults. Perhaps the assignment of some profitmaking bit of the NHS to one of his donors. American English is rich in epithet so that Trump can raise his price by threatening to call Mandelson a jerk, a dumbass or a fourflusher. He can ask still more for a civilized conversation with Mandelson. Given Trump’s methods he might well charge by the minute. And who knows what he would extort for calling him a swell guy, doing a terrific job? At least 1 full per cent more on our defence budget. Or a chunk of the United Kingdom to go with Canada and Greenland? Perhaps Starmer could buy him off by moving the Prime Meridian from Greenwich to Mar-a-Lago.
Mandelson’s appointment has been preceded by a great deal of hype and spin about his brilliance as a negotiator, especially over trade. Invented or real, this reputation is the worst possible preamble for his appointment as a negotiator with Trump. The one rule of dealings with Trump is that he must be perceived as the victor, just as Emperor Nero had to win the chariot races and, as a singer and fiddler, the annual Rome’s Got Talent contest.
I doubt if Mandelson could sustain plausibly the role of Trump’s baffled loser. It is not like him. He will tell some trusted favourite of his brilliance at handling Trump. He may even whisper it, like King Midas’s barber, into some reeds in the Potomac. But when this becomes known, it spells the end of Starmer’s relationship with Trump.
If, against all expectations, Mandelson’s embassy is a success, Starmer cannot claim any domestic political advantage from it until Trump leaves office in 2029 – or even longer if he retains his hold over American voters and names a surrogate successor.
Starmer has staked our country’s future and his own, on his ability to forge a successful relationship with Donald Trump, a man who openly despises virtually everything he stands for. He has entrusted this task to a man whom Trump is likely to detest and has every opportunity to dismiss and disparage.
In the United States, Mandelson’s appointment would require endorsement by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This is rarely a rigorous procedure (and there is a no-aggression pact when it comes to party donors) but it provides a basic safeguard against seriously dud or scandalous choices. The equivalent Commons Select Committee has now invited Mandelson to give evidence but no other MPs have raised his appointment, although its success or failure may have serious consequences for their constituents.
Mandelson should definitely appear before the Committee. Better still, a full-scale debate on Starmer's motives for the appointment would be good for British diplomacy and democracy alike. In either setting, Peter Mandelson’s admirers could take the chance to burnish his credentials for Donald Trump. Afterwards, they could assemble at the airport to cheer him on his mission, just like the throng in 1938 who waved off a flight to Munich.
Richard Heller was chief of staff to Denis Healey and Gerald Kaufman, and as a journalist has reported on and analysed six Presidential elections. He is also the author of The Prisoner of Rubato Towers.
