Mandelson told them about his regrettable friendship with Epstein. They knew about it in King Charles Street and in Downing Street.

The person responsible for the vetting has since privately asserted that the prime minister’s office knew “everything” when Mandelson was appointed ambassador to DC – and this is information I have acquired wholly separately from anything publicly written or broadcast since his dismissal. That the government (which, it turns out, he was privately advising through his former mentee Morgan McSweeney) should now sack him when it nevertheless appointed him, knowing “everything”, must indeed be enraging for Mandelson. That is why he didn’t resign this time; he made them sack him.

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