Some events have the ability to truly shake up our political landscape in ways that have significant and lingering impacts for years, if not decades, ahead. Many are currently talking about a political scandal of this nature. One is related to a certain Peter Mandelson, who, up until very recently, was appointed as the UK Ambassador to the United States of America until his unceremonious departure at the hands of Sir Keir Starmer, who sacked him in September of last year based on a tranche of photographs and evidence emerging from the now infamous Epstein files, which continue to grow by way of their public disclosure even though some of the content remains heavily redacted. And while these files emerge in the public domain, all sorts of names and dirty dealings are coming to the fore—some of which are unsurprising, some of which are highlighting more dirty dealings. People already mentioned in this case, like Peter Mandelson, resurfaced again, literally caught with his trousers down. Not just physically in the form of photographic evidence, but also in the form of email communications and information sharing, which was minute by minute during the 2008 financial crisis, when life-changing decisions were being made in relation to pensions, investment, and the global financial system—a cabinet in which Gordon Brown and Mandelson were both part, and which was in the most difficult of circumstances. But rather than think about the greater good of society and Britain as a whole, Mandelson was looking after his friends, his well-known dirty friends in the world of sleazy business and human trafficking, where he would spend some of his time then, since then, and up until it became impossible for him to do so. Such is the nature of this scandal that he is presented among the journalist classes as a dead man walking. And it’s not a question of if but when he would be forced to resign over this.
I very much remember the 2008 crisis and the conversations I was having with journalists at the time about other issues to do with extremism, and I said, ‘Look, we’ve got a situation on our hands that means essentially that if they go down the austerity path to shore up the banks, it’s going to have significant impacts for possibly a generation.’ And here I am, back in the country after 15 years away—15 years later—still feeling and living through the effects of that decline, which is a long and separate story about austerity and ideological taxation of the poor in relation to the wealthy, which still impacts cities, neighbourhoods, and communities in the most significant ways, leading to polarisation. It ultimately led to the responses in 2011 known as the Occupy movement, and that created the breeding ground for what was essentially Brexit. And the cost of Brexit was further made more severe as a result of COVID, and here we are in 2026, still trying to recover.
The point, more immediately, is the situation regarding the appointment of Mandelson, after first being twice sacked from the Blair government—once in the first term and again in the second—both times to do with dealings with rich people that he tried to curry favour with or tried to borrow money from, ultimately leading to his demise. But every time, the Prince of Darkness was able to find a way back, soon becoming an EU commissioner and later being brought back into government under Gordon Brown’s regime up until 2008.
I was in Istanbul from 2010 to 2016, and through local connections, I was invited to the World Economic Forum in Istanbul in 2012. The World Economic Forum outside of the one in Davos is a similar event but meant to attract a bit more of the good and great across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. And for some reason, through a last-minute invitation, I was invited to join an interfaith lunch, merely to have conversations with all sorts of people who have all sorts of powerful roles in public life and in business. To no surprise, the rich and the powerful are absolutely ordinary and often very unintellectual and quite unremarkable in everyday conversation, but they have a presence that is often defined more by confidence and self-presentation, as well as their advanced networks achieved through years of climbing up the ladder, often with quite prominent starting points. It was during one particular break, while I was trying to find somebody with whom I could potentially start a conversation, at one of the swankier hotels in Istanbul, that a certain Peter Mandelson crept up to me with the very sleazy chat-up line of ‘What brings you here?’
I first laid eyes on him in 2001/2, when I used to work in Westminster, at the Home Office. Lots of colleagues and I would grab a sandwich and sit in St James’s Park on the lawns on sunny afternoons, grabbing some vitamin D and also some downtime and chill conversation, and on a couple of occasions, Mandelson, with his little poodles and two hefty protective security officers, would go on his little walks. I still remember the image of this very tall, slim chap leading these very racy little poodles ahead of him, with one leash in his hand and his other hand tightly held next to his ear with the mobile phone, engaged in some very deep and clearly secretive conversation. What was interesting was the pace of his walk, with the poodles in front of him leading the charge, and the security officers trying to keep up. This is a man in a hurry. My colleagues and I remarked on the strange but unusual characteristics of power in play, particularly of a man who was very much in the public eye at the time.
Back in Istanbul. It’s 2012, it’s a swanky hotel, it’s a coffee break moment, and the creepy Mandelson comes up to me and effectively tries to chat me up. I wasn’t really interested in wanting to talk to him because I’d been completely disappointed by the Blair government in relation to the response to the War on Terror, especially the lies and deceit in relation to the war on Iraq, which had mobilised me politically and intellectually in ways that I still remain activated by. And so when his question was ‘What brings you here?’ I had to be my cynical self, and I said something along the lines of, ‘Well, you know, it’s all the rich and famous—how could I not join such lavish company?’ Waiting for his response, while he was trying to think of something clever to say, I followed it up with, ‘Shouldn’t you be with Tony Blair right now?’ Knowing full well that they had a bit of a public rift recently. His mood completely changed by the time he got to the end of my second follow-up sentence, and he sort of said, ‘Well, he’s probably with his rich friends in Kazakhstan.’ I said, ‘Probably.’ At this point, he was clearly uncomfortable, but I was enjoying it for a second. And then I thought I should be a little bit easy on him, and I followed it up by saying, ‘Well, you know, these events are always good opportunities just to meet with some well-known people and also to learn from them,’ hoping perhaps a line or two of wisdom might come from his mouth. But I was not entertained by his speech or his advances, and he had realised that I was not interested in anything he had to say, but he continued to chat with me in a very general sense. I followed suit, shook his hand, and said, ‘Well, it was nice to talk to you,’ and I was off somewhere else. Then I quickly, accidentally bumped into a good professor colleague of mine, and we started to chat separately. In fact, she asked me to introduce her to the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz, and I said, ‘Oh yes, I’ve met him, and I know you’re going to be in the next session together, so let me introduce you,’ which I did. And of course, Shaukat Aziz didn’t remember me—and why would he, of course?—although when the High Commissioner invited me to a special round table for the Prime Minister when he was on tour in the UK in 2006/7, and I asked him the question about how he could improve the public image of Pakistan, he did answer my question by saying it’s up to us to go back to the country and then come to Britain and Europe and America to tell a good story about it. And my mind wanted to say, ‘Well, how can we, with such a corrupt, uneven, highly volatile political space, largely because of you and your ilk?’ but I didn’t get that part of the question out, risking the possibility of being chucked out of the room for the gilded few invited to a poorly lit room on the seventh floor of the Dorchester Hotel.
The moral of this story is that sleazy business, political, and public sector types are only interested in advancing their social networks and their power bases in order to improve opportunities for greater access to more power and/or wealth, as the case may be, or to find connections with other people in order to stay in their positions or strengthen them if they’re already reasonably powerful and connected, which is often the case in these networks, as they are essentially groups of highly networked and powerful people coming together to strengthen those very same networks. I didn’t really find anything new to learn. Lunch was amazing, of course, as you would expect from a five-star hotel, and I didn’t really follow up with anybody or anything, but I did get a wonderful USB stick, which I still use, actually—part of the goodie bags provided to attendees—which contained a list of all these people and their bios, which I found very useful to peruse. I still keep it and use it as a memento. It’s a very tiny little USB stick, itching to get lost, and it’s got very faded World Economic Forum 2012 lettering on it, which reminds me of how small these people are in reality, yet how significant they ultimately become—not because of talent or quality of human dignity, but because they live for themselves and are exemplars in doing so. I came looking for giants and found only reptiles who had learnt to stand on their hind legs.