Of those two destroyers of character, money and charm, Peter Mandelson lacked the first, so traded on the second. I put that in the past tense, because there’s no coming back from this week’s revelations about his buttering up his friend, Jeffrey Epstein, with inside information when he was in government. Peter M with beard, To his right, Tom Shebbeare It’s a half century this year since I first met Peter Mandelson.