Two days after Peter Mandelson was announced as the UK’s Ambassador to Washington in December 2024, Tom McTague, then political editor of UnHerd, published a column headlined ‘Peter Mandelson is a canny choice for US ambassador‘. In it he wrote: “In Washington, Mandelson will do what he has always done: gossip, perform and gravitate to the centre of power. In many ways, he is a made diplomat.” The name Jeffrey Epstein does not appear in that short and profoundly positive piece.