LONDON — Keir Starmer is so often portrayed as a process-obsessed lawyer that a colleague once called him “Mr. Rules.” But Wednesday’s documents release about the prime minister’s appointment of Peter Mandelson — a friend of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — to be Britain’s ambassador to Washington provides more evidence of the raw politics that greased the wheels of Downing Street. There is no “smoking gun” that showed Starmer knew everything about the Mandelson-Epstein relationship. That’s because he didn’t, and one was never expected. The question from the PM’s critics has always been whether he should have taken a different course, given what he did know. That means the most difficult revelation for Starmer is that a top Foreign Office official and his most senior foreign policy aide, national security adviser Jonathan Powell, both had concerns about the appointment — even as the PM’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, pushed to get it over the line. In other words: The process was there, but the final call was political — and rested on the PM’s personal judgement. ‘REPUTATIONAL RISK’ Starmer decided to sack Mandelson last September after new revelations about his close historic friendship with Epstein. Mandelson has apologized “unequivocally” for his association with Epstein and “to the women and girls that suffered.” The prime minister said at that time — and often repeats now — that the “depth and extent” of the relationship clearly went further than he had known when he appointed Mandelson. This is true, but the new files show red flags were there nonetheless.  The 147-page cache published by the U.K. government shows Starmer was warned that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein was a “reputational risk.” A note to the prime minister from Dec. 11, 2024 provides the receipts for what Starmer recently admitted — that he was warned about reports that Mandelson had stayed in Epstein’s home after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Aides also flagged to Starmer the fact — which was not public at the time — that Mandelson brokered a meeting between his friend Epstein and former PM Tony Blair in 2002 to talk about “economic and monetary trends.” Separately, Starmer’s national security adviser Powell raised concerns, albeit they only appear in the files after Mandelson’s sacking. The 147-page cache published by the U.K. government shows Starmer was warned that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein was a “reputational risk.” | Lucy North/PA Images via Getty Images Powell’s misgivings are revealed in notes of a “fact-finding” call between Powell and the PM’s General Counsel Mike Ostheimer, the evening after Starmer sacked Mandelson last September. The notes show Powell — who had worked for years with Mandelson in Tony Blair’s Downing Street — raised concerns about Mandelson’s reputation directly with McSweeney.  Powell told Ostheimer he had found the process “unusual” and “weirdly rushed” — and that the most senior civil servant in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Philip Barton, also “had reservations around the appointment.” But Mandelson got the job anyway, and arrangements were made in haste ahead of Donald Trump’s January 2025 inauguration as U.S. president. Mandelson was handed his IT equipment and first set of “official sensitive” level files on Boxing Day. Two previous shortlists in 2024 — one compiled by Starmer’s predecessor as PM Rishi Sunak, and a second by McSweeney’s predecessor as chief of staff Sue Gray — had been torn up before Mandelson strode forward. Starmer made his decision less than a week after receiving the due diligence report. ‘MORGAN’S FINGERPRINTS ARE ALL OVER THIS’ Wednesday’s document dump shows the political relationships that lay behind this process. Two names crop up repeatedly in the files; those of McSweeney and Starmer’s then-Director of Communications Matthew Doyle, who were both political special advisers in No. 10 and personal friends of Mandelson. The documents show that McSweeney and Mandelson spoke to each other repeatedly. At one point on Dec. 20, 2024, shortly after Starmer approved the appointment, it was McSweeney who contacted Mandelson personally to flag the need for him to fill out conflict of interest forms.  When the Epstein friendship was flagged in due diligence, McSweeney had a “back and forth” with Doyle, the former communications chief told Ostheimer in a separate fact-finding call. This back-and-forth resulted in McSweeney asking Mandelson three questions about his links with Epstein.  After this, Doyle was “satisfied” with Mandelson’s responses about his contact with Epstein, according to the note to Starmer on Dec. 11, 2024. Doyle, whom Starmer elevated to the House of Lords, had the Labour whip suspended in February after it emerged he had campaigned for a friend who had been convicted of child sex offenses. (Doyle has previously apologized for this “clear error of judgment.”) The government has yet to publish extensive WhatsApp and email communications between Mandelson and Starmer’s ministers and aides. | Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images One senior Labour MP, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly, said: “Matthew Doyle’s understanding of what is appropriate contact with a pedophile is somewhat questionable.”  Crucially, Mandelson’s answers to McSweeney’s three questions have not yet been published. The email chain has been held back at the request of the Metropolitan Police, which is midway through a separate investigation into Mandelson. When this email chain is eventually published, No. 10 aides believe it will support Starmer’s case that Mandelson “lied” to Downing Street about his relationship with Epstein. Mandelson’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment after the documents were released Wednesday. AN OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE There are other elements of the new files that will reassure Starmer’s restive MPs. The most obvious is that McSweeney and Doyle have both already left No. 10. The senior Labour MP quoted above said: “It’s a good thing Morgan’s gone because his fingerprints are all over this. How could he possibly have stayed?” A second Labour MP said it was a relief that McSweeney had left. “He was working against the prime minister’s best interests,” they said. The other factor cheering Labour MPs is what the files say about Mandelson in his own words, fueling his new-found status as a Labour hate figure. The files show Mandelson asked for a £547,201 severance payment after his sacking (he got £75,000), and told the FCDO’s Chief People Officer Mark Power in September that his “chief concern” was arriving back with “maximum dignity and minimum media intrusion.” “[Labour MPs] are more preoccupied with the £500,000,” said a third Labour MP loyal to Starmer. “What kind of person asks for that?” But this is only one step on the road for Starmer’s No. 10, and for possible questions about the prime minister’s judgement. The government has yet to publish extensive WhatsApp and email communications between Mandelson and Starmer’s ministers and aides, not just about his appointment and dismissal but about broader politics, relationships and strategy. Downing Street also announced on Wednesday that it will review the separate national security vetting system. | Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images Wednesday’s files show the concern that the breadth of this planned publication — forced in a vote by the opposition Conservative Party — sparked in No. 10. As Starmer prepared to agree to the transparency earlier this year, his private secretary for foreign affairs, Ailsa Terry, told a fellow official there should be a “welfare check” on Mandelson every day. Downing Street also announced on Wednesday that it will review the separate national security vetting system — details of which have not been published in Mandelson’s case — to learn lessons from the former ambassador’s developed vetting. ALL FOR WHAT? The great irony is that Starmer might have avoided all this pain by listening to officialdom. Wednesday’s document release confirmed that two unnamed government officials were found “appointable” for the ambassador job following a recruitment process in April 2024, under Starmer’s predecessor Sunak. Two people with knowledge of the process told POLITICO that the lead candidate was the then-No. 10 national security adviser Tim Barrow, as widely reported at the time. And the runner-up? Christian Turner, the two people said. It is Turner to whom Starmer has now turned for a steadier pair of hands in Washington. Critics might wonder why he didn’t appoint him in the first place. Mason Boycott-Owen contributed to this report.

LONDON — Britain’s leading opposition politician has joined calls for British royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to testify in the United States over his links to Jeffrey Epstein. Nigel Farage, the right-wing populist whose party, Reform UK is leading opinion polls, said that giving evidence to a U.S. congressional investigation about Epstein could be the former prince’s only chance to clear his name. “If Andrew believes that, yep his judgment was flawed, yep he did things he shouldn’t have done, but they weren’t coercive, they weren’t outside the law, if he believes those things, then he ought to go … for his own sake, and testify,” Farage said. “If he doesn’t go, he’d probably never be able to show his face in public again,” the Reform leader added, warning it is “probably the only chance he’s got, to some degree … at least I think, to clear his name.” In 2019, Mountbatten-Windsor was accused in a civil lawsuit of sexually assaulting Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers, but he strongly denied all allegations. He paid a financial settlement to Giuffre, but accepted no liability. The royal has faced a backlash over his friendship with Epstein, but has not been charged with a crime in either the U.K. or the U.S. He missed a November deadline to sit for a transcribed interview that was set by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Farage’s intervention comes after Keir Starmer suggested that Mountbatten-Windsor should appear before U.S. lawmakers. The British prime minister told reporters last week that anyone with information “should be prepared to share that information in whatever form they are asked to,” adding: “You can’t be victim-centered if you’re not prepared to do that.” Mountbatten-Windsor is under renewed pressure to testify after the latest tranche of Epstein files released by the U.S. Department of Justice included a picture which appears to show King Charles’ brother crouching on all fours over an unknown woman. An email exchange dated August 2010, also released Friday, showed Epstein offered the then-Duke of York the opportunity to have dinner with a woman he described as “26, russian, clevere beautiful, trustworthy.” Mountbatten-Windsor replied: “That was quick! How are you? Good to be free?” The exchange happened a year after Epstein was released from jail following a sentence for soliciting prostitution from a person under 18.

Marine Le Pen’s party wants France to reopen brothels managed directly by prostitutes. The party will soon submit a bill allowing brothels to reopen as cooperatives, Jean-Philippe Tanguy, a prominent lawmaker from the National Rally, said in a series of interviews with French media. “Prostitutes would be empresses in their kingdom,” Tanguy told French radio station RTL. He said he has already written a draft text which is also backed by Le Pen. Brothels were banned in France in 1946. Under French law prostitutes can still offer their services, but a 2016 law pushed by the Socialist Party punishes clients with a €1,500 fine. The proposal has reignited debate in France over legalizing prostitution. A similar debate has emerged in other EU countries. In Italy, for instance, politicians from Giorgia Meloni’s governing coalition, are also in favor of reopening brothels and regulating prostitution but, for now, those proposals have not been implemented. French daily Le Monde first reported on Tanguy’s plans.

LONDON — Senior British government officials on Monday defended the ill-fated hiring of Peter Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to Washington despite his relationship with the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson was ousted from his role as Britain’s man in Washington earlier this year after emails were published which showed him telling the financier he “thinks the world” of him and was “furious” at his 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from a minor. In a grilling by the MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee Monday afternoon, Foreign Office Permanent Under-Secretary Oliver Robbins and Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald — Britain’s top civil servant — insisted that the government had not been aware of this specific information at the time of the appointment. Wormald, who is the head of the civil service, confirmed that there was “no panel interview” when Mandelson was being considered for the role because the post was filled through a direct ministerial appointment by Prime Minister Keir Starmer. A panel interview would normally be used to ask a candidate if there was anything in their history that would bring the government into disrepute, Wormald explained, but Mandelson did not go through this process, and therefore the question was not directly posed. Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein did come up during due diligence checks, Robbins said. But Wormald said the information that ultimately saw Mandelson ousted from his role was “not available to us at the time that the due diligence was done.” Quizzing the pair, Labour MP and committee member Uma Kumaran argued that it ought to have been foreseen that a “well-publicized friendship with the world’s most notorious pedophile might be a problem to the government,” while Conservative MP Aphra Brandreth read out a list of publicly available information on Mandelson, saying he “kept a notoriously close relationship” with the pedophile and stayed in his Manhattan townhouse after Epstein had pleaded guilty. Brandreth asked: “At what point were questions raised about whether that was appropriate, and why does it seem that suddenly a small additional bit of information would tip the balance on that being, at one point deemed appropriate to then not appropriate?” Speaking in the House of Commons in September after the sacking, Starmer said the Mandelson-Epstein relationship was “far different to what I’d understood to be the position at the point of appointment,” and “had I known then what I know now, I’d have never appointed him.” Under questioning by the committee, Robinson confirmed that Mandelson — who has said he feels “utterly awful about my association with Epstein twenty years ago and the plight of his victims” — is no longer on the government payroll, but refused to say if the former ambassador received any settlement following his exit. The pair said there had been a “number” of changes to the direct ministerial appointment system since Mandelson was appointed. Wormald said these reforms would “effectively replicate what would normally happen in a panel interview,” introducing a higher degree of scrutiny.

WARSAW — Karol Nawrocki, a historian and amateur boxer aligned with U.S. President Donald Trump, will be inaugurated as Polish president on Wednesday amid a hubbub over his football hooligan past and a property deal that triggered a criminal probe. While the presidency will grant the nationalist politician immunity from prosecution, that has hardly quelled the noise surrounding a series of sometimes surreal scandals that bubbled to the surface in the run-up to the June 1 election, which Nawrocki won with 50.98 percent of the vote. The controversies range from his bizarre use of a crime writer alter ego to lavish praise upon himself to far more serious allegations of involvement with gangsters and prostitution at a luxury hotel on the Baltic Sea. Former President Lech Wałęsa, a Nobel-laureate dissident who led the Solidarity movement that toppled Communist rule, said he was refusing to attend the “disgraceful spectacle” of Nawrocki’s inauguration. Here’s a recap of the most contentious past activities that are likely to dog the new president of Poland, a NATO heavyweight and the EU’s fifth most populous country. APARTMENT INVESTIGATION Prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into whether an elderly man — identified only as Jerzy Ż — was swindled between 2012 and 2017 into transferring ownership of his apartment in the northern city of Gdańsk. The prosecutors do not directly name Nawrocki but are probing the circumstances of his acquisition of the property. The apartment probe follows three formal complaints, including one from Gdańsk Mayor Aleksandra Dulkiewicz, who hails from the liberal and pro-EU Civic Coalition party of Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The probe centers on whether Jerzy Ż was deceived into “unfavorably” transferring ownership of property worth €28,000 in exchange for promises of “care and assistance in everyday life.” Fraud carries a penalty of six months to eight years in prison but Nawrocki is in no immediate danger. As head of state, he is answerable only to the State Tribunal, a special court for top officials, putting him beyond the reach of ordinary criminal courts during his five-year term. After that, he could once again face legal action, though much will depend on whether he stands for a second term. Nawrocki insists he did nothing wrong and acted only out of good intentions toward Jerzy Ż. “I have numerous witnesses who can attest that I offered assistance to Mr. Jerzy—providing him with financial support and running errands on his behalf. During my foreign trips, it was my colleagues and associates who ensured he continued to receive my support,” Nawrocki said in an interview with Wirtualna Polska, a major news website. “Looking you squarely in the eye as president-elect, I can say: ‘I have nothing to be ashamed of,’” Nawrocki added. The case has only been made more turbid by a report in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily citing Mariusz Duszyński, spokesperson for Gdańsk’s prosecutor’s office, that the same Jerzy Ż was jailed in 2011 for sexual assault. PIMPING DENIALS The most egregious accusation — even leveled against Nawrocki by Prime Minister Tusk — is that the incoming president was involved in pimping at a luxury hotel at Sopot, a beach resort on the Baltic Sea. It is an assertion Nawrocki strenuously denies. Tusk accused the leadership of the conservative nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which supported Nawrocki’s presidential bid, of knowing “about the connections with the gangsters, about ‘arranging for girls’ … about the apartment fraud and other matters still hidden.” The most egregious accusation — even leveled against Karol Nawrocki by Prime Minister Donald Tusk — is that the incoming president was involved in pimping at a luxury hotel at Sopot, a beach resort on the Baltic Sea. | Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images The story first appeared in May on Onet, another major news website, which gathered testimony that Nawrocki had arranged prostitutes for guests of the hotel where he was working for security — in return for a cut of the cash for himself. Following the Onet report, a member of parliament for Civic Coalition appeared on television to vouch for it. “I have knowledge that all the information presented … in the Onet article is simply true,” Agnieszka Pomaska, a member of parliament for the region where the alleged offenses took place, told TVN24. Nawrocki sued Onet over the story. Still, his critics point out that he, significantly, did not do so under the special fast-track “election mode” of court proceedings that would have required a final decision within 48 hours for allegations made during a campaign. Now, the case will likely take months, if not years, to resolve. Asked by Wirtualna Polska whether the allegations were false, Nawrocki said: “Absolutely. I was slandered.” “The hotel hosted everyone from [Russian President] Vladimir Putin to political elites and music stars performing at the Sopot Festival. What guests do for entertainment is their business — I had nothing to do with it. My job was to ensure their safety and security,” he added. FOOTBALL HOOLIGANISM Nawrocki admitted he took part in a brawl between hooligans from rival football clubs from Gdańsk and Poznań in 2009 when he was 26 and had just begun work in the Institute for National Remembrance, a state agency tracking Nazi and Communist crimes against Poles. The fight, which the keen pugilist Nawrocki called “sparring,” had been investigated at the time, with Wirtualna Polska reporting that some of the participants had serious criminal records. During the election campaign, Nawrocki embraced his on-brand heritage as a fighter, saying he took part in “sporting, noble fights.” “When I sparred with someone — let me stress, always with willing participants — I never ran a background check or asked for their criminal record. It’s entirely possible that some of them had done bad things. But that doesn’t mean their actions reflect on me in any way,” Nawrocki said in the interview for Wirtualna Polska. The president-elect conceded, however, that he overstepped by calling the brawls “noble” during the campaign. MORE APARTMENTS IN GDAŃSK Another allegation concerns Nawrocki’s personal use of apartments at the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, a national institution, when he was its director of the between 2017 and 2021. The case was first reported by Gazeta Wyborcza in early 2025. “As director of the Museum of the Second World War, Nawrocki stayed in a deluxe apartment within the museum’s hotel complex for half a year—despite living just 5 kilometers away. The PiS-backed presidential candidate did not pay for the accommodation and now denies any wrongdoing,” the newspaper wrote. Following the report, the prosecutor’s office in Gdańsk opened an investigation in February into allegations that Nawrocki stayed in the apartments free of charge for a total of 201 days. The probe is ongoing. If the apartments had been rented out commercially, Gazeta Wyborcza claimed, the museum would have made 120,000 złoty (€28,000). Nawrocki denies he made the museum apartments his second home, insisting he stayed there during the coronavirus quarantine and also used the apartments for official meetings with domestic and foreign guests. Another investigation — though not formally targeting Nawrocki—concerns the disappearance of 8,000 albums of historical materials from the main exhibition of the museum. The albums went missing from museum storage between April and June 2020, during Nawrocki’s tenure as director. The current museum leadership believes the items were destroyed, resulting in financial damage of no less than 200,000 złoty. The investigation is ongoing. ALTER EGO Within the realm of the odd rather than potentially criminal, a 2018 interview given to a Gdańsk branch of TVP, Poland’s public broadcaster, resurfaced during the election campaign. The interview was with a Tadeusz Batyr, a writer exploring the Polish underworld of the 1990s. He heaped praise on a book by Nawrocki. The twist? Batyr turned out to be Nawrocki himself, his face blurred and voice distorted to protect his identity from mobsters. Nawrocki defended himself by saying:  “Literary pseudonyms are nothing new in Polish journalism, literature and academia.”