[0:00]British Prime Minister Saki Starmer has sacked his ambassador to the United States as more revelations about the social circle surrounding disgraced
[0:09]financia Jeffrey Epstein become public. Epste was a convicted sex offender and was also facing trial on child sex trafficking charges when he died in an
[0:18]apparent suicide in prison in 2019. Zaki had been under mounting political pressure over Peter Mandelson after US lawmakers on Monday released a book
[0:29]compiled years before for Epstein's 50th birthday. It contained photos and a handwritten note from Mr. Mandolson that described Epstein as his best pal.
[0:40]First, the British government defended their ambassador. Then, it changed its mind after a new trove of emails was published by Bloomberg on Wednesday. Uh,
[0:50]in light of additional information in emails written by Peter Mandlesson, the prime minister has asked the foreign secretary to withdraw him as ambassador to the United States.
[1:02]>> The emails show, Mr. Speaker, that the depth and extent of Lord Madison's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at
[1:12]the time of his appointment. In particular, Mr. Speaker, Lord Madison's suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein's first conviction was wrongful and should be
[1:22]challenged is new information. >> Well, unfortunately for the Prime Minister, he had stood up in Parliament and defended Peter Mandlesson just hours
[1:31]before he decided to fire him. >> Does the Prime Minister have full confidence in Peter Mandlesson? >> Mr. Speaker, let me start by saying the
[1:41]victims of Epstein are the forefront of our minds. He was a despicable criminal who committed the most heinous crimes and destroyed the lives of so many women
[1:51]and girls. The ambassador has repeatedly expressed his deep regret for his association with him. Uh he's right to do so. I have confidence in him and he's
[2:01]playing an important role in the UK US relationship. [Applause] Not >> this is interesting, Mr. Speaker. He says the ambassador has expressed full
[2:11]regret, but the victims of the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein have called for Lord Mandlesson to be sacked. >> And just so the house is aware, in 2019,
[2:22]Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of child prostitution and sex trafficking that took place between 2002 and 2005. That is the precise period which Lord
[2:32]Mandlesson called Jeffrey Epstein his best pal. >> Absolutely. Was the prime minister aware of this intimate relationship when he appointed Loren Mandlesson to be our
[2:42]ambassador in Washington? >> Mr. Speaker, as she and the house would expect, full due process was followed during this appointment. As it is with
[2:53]all ambassadors, the ambassador has repeatedly expressed his deep regret. His right to do so. He's now playing an important part in the US UK relationship. >> Well, he was, but now he's not. So,
[3:05]let's get more on this from Quentin Peele, who's a former foreign editor of the Financial Times. Welcome back to DW. Expand for us on what we just we heard in that first clip. What happened
[3:16]between the prime minister backing Peter Mandelen on Tuesday and then sacking him today? >> Well, uh, for a start, I think it could
[3:27]scarcely have come at a more embarrassing moment for Saki Stama. After all, President Trump is due in Britain in a week's time on a state visit on which he was due to be
[3:39]accompanied by Peter Mandel as the UK ambassador to Washington. So, it's a train wreck that's been waiting to happen and it's actually happened at the
[3:49]most difficult possible moment. So I think that Kestama was desperate to try and hang on to it and then realized that in fact it was just an untenable
[4:00]position as more and more of these startling emails came out just really underlying what they I think knew already that the relationship between
[4:11]Peter Mandel and Jeffrey Epstein was very close. >> How close do we know? Well, certainly in the words of Peter
[4:22]Mandolson, they were best pals and he talked of we love you. He said in in another email after um Epstein had been actually found guilty and and was in
[4:34]jail. So, he was, I think, a very regular visitor. Peter Mandlesson has always been somebody who's been very
[4:43]impressed by the glamour and glitz of very wealthy people and I think that's exactly what Jeffrey Epstein meant to him
[4:54]>> and we will come to that. Um but he was vetted wasn't he by security services in the prime minister's words a full due process uh was undertaken. So, the
[5:05]supposed new details of his relationship with Epstein came to light in this reporting from Bloomberg, which makes it look like Bloomberg have better sources
[5:14]than Britain's security services. >> It certainly seems as if that due process was somewhat less than rigorous.
[5:24]Um I mean it's it's really difficult to imagine quite what was going on because it was a very controversial appointment
[5:34]from the beginning. Everybody knew that Peter Mandel has already uh twice resigned from major government
[5:42]ministerial positions over um in a over scandals of different sorts. And when it suddenly his name came out of the woodwork as the man who was going to
[5:53]likely be going to Washington, everybody said, "Hang on, is this wise?" Well, Kier Starma clearly decided that it was a good uh appointment to make that Peter
[6:05]Mandelen who is an extraordinarily able man and a uh had huge experience particularly of trade relations which
[6:15]were obviously going to be absolutely central to Washington. I think that pe that karma and his and his innermost
[6:23]advisers all decided that they couldn't resist the temptation of sending Mandlesson to Washington. Fatal mistake. >> The the the scandals you mentioned there
[6:34]1998 when he was trade and industry secretary, he had to resign over a loan from another millionaire friend. uh at 2001 he resigned as Northern Ireland
[6:44]secretary uh after contacting the home office um a couple of years before on behalf of a billionaire Indian-born businessman a switchand Hinduja who was
[6:54]seeking British citizenship and the quote that always follows this this uh Peter Mandlesson around is that he was was it intensely relaxed about the idea
[7:04]of people making lots and lots of money >> indeed it was Uh it was a quote that he was he was known for in trying to
[7:15]describe what the new Labor government of of Tony Blair was uh was in favor of which was that they were very much in
[7:24]favor of people getting rich. And he was always clearly uh very much attracted himself to the company uh uh and uh
[7:34]being in the company of and being entertained by very wealthy friends. Now, this is a bad week, a bad couple of weeks for the prime minister. Uh, this
[7:45]comes just a couple of days after he had to sack his deputy uh prime minister. Do these scandals have these scandals weakened him?
[7:55]Yes, I think they have undoubtedly. It's a it's a bad moment domestically and it's a bad moment internationally for this to happen. Domestically, as you said, he's lost his deputy prime
[8:06]minister. um he has had a massive reshuffle of his government. He's changed a lot of people around in order to give a new look to the government.
[8:17]And just as he's talking about sort of a relaunch and trying to make his government look stable and sensible and
[8:26]certainly having nothing to do with sleas and corruption, this new scandal comes out of the woodwork in relation to Peter Mandolson. And that's why I think
[8:37]that the reason was that he changed his mind apparently so dramatically having begun by trying to defend Peter Mandlesson and then very swiftly changed
[8:48]to decide that actually the relationship couldn't continue. >> So we're expecting that state visit from Donald Trump to London and the UK next
[8:59]week. uh Peter Mandelson's reputation as someone with an excellent contact book and just being a charming, persuasive uh man. That was that was presumably that
[9:10]was part of why he he got the job to bring uh Trump around. >> Yes, absolutely. Uh I think that in fact his his record in these few months that
[9:22]he's been ambassador is widely regarded as having been rather good that he has indeed managed to get really quite close to President Trump and to actually um be
[9:34]able to uh get the British government uh into a better position uh with the US president with all his unpredictability
[9:44]uh than the rest of of Europe than the member states of the European Union who are facing rather more drastic uh tariff
[9:54]measures from Trump and indeed are clearly regarded by Trump with some suspicion whereas the pre the US president is clearly quite keen on his
[10:04]relationship with the United Kingdom with the British prime minister and indeed with King Charles whose name was on the invitation which he's coming in answer to next week
[10:15]>> and so now we have two prominent British figures, Prince Andrew and Peter Mandelson who have had to face consequences over their relationship
[10:24]with Mr. Epstein. Different story in the US though, isn't it? What do you make of that? >> Well, I think the British are really
[10:35]very touchy about um sort of sleazy behavior, as you might call it. the sort of behavior that clearly was encouraged
[10:46]by Jeffrey Epstein uh in his entertaining where he had young women um young women who were indeed underage
[10:56]certainly in under British law um encouraging sexual relations with some of his guests and so on as those those
[11:05]victims have come out since and charged. Um so uh all of that um I think is something that really is found rather
[11:17]offensive in Britain. Maybe it's more acceptable in the US or maybe it's simply that the single person who is
[11:26]clearly also uh involved in in some way yet to be made absolutely clear in the US is the president himself and his
[11:36]power is clearly just to reject the accusations and deny everything. So now the United Kingdom needs a safe pair of
[11:47]hands in Washington. Presumably a safe pair of hands, no scandal, gets on well with Donald Trump. Who who's in the running?
[11:57]Well, I think they're going to go back probably and and go for a professional diplomat, but I'm not absolutely sure. I think that uh their fingers have been
[12:07]badly burnt. K. Stalman's in particular uh in making a political choice. But I suppose that if he does go for a diplomat, and there are obviously some very senior diplomats around with a lot
[12:19]of experience, uh it might be seen as an admission that he got it very wrong the first time. So, it's difficult to know. Donald Trump is such an unpredictable
[12:31]person to deal with and it really did look for a brief time as if Peter Mandelson had that sort of uh engagement, that sort of familiarity
[12:43]with um Donald Trump's love of of the the rich life and the trappings of wealthiness that it would work. Now, I
[12:52]think they've got to find maybe somebody who I don't know if they exist or not, and names have not really been mentioned at all so far, but a diplomat who can
[13:04]also um really get quite close to a US president uh who is a difficult man. Perhaps it's somebody who plays golf. I
[13:14]was hearing the other day of another former ambassador who had discovered that you could get much more time from Donald Trump if you talked to him about golf than if you talked to him about tariffs.
[13:26]>> All right, thanks for talking us through that, Quentyn. Quentyn Peele, former foreign editor of the Financial Times. Have a good day. >> Thank you.