Labour veteran Peter Mandelson is the first political appointment as ambassador to Washington in 50 years
His feigned lack of interest in shepherding a succession of middle-rank ministers through the British embassy, a 96-year-old recently restored Lutyens building, is typical of the smoke and mirrors that has surrounded his potential appointment., who feared one of the key roles in his job – guiding the special relationship through a second Trump term – would effectively be snatched from him by the publicity-attracting former minister.
There are also self-evident dangers in the appointment. It had been suggested that either Mandelson or David Miliband, the formerforeign secretary, would be offered the post if Kamala Harris was appointed, since they were natural ideological soulmates, but a lower-profile professional diplomat would handle relations if Trump triumphed.
An internally famous paper attributed to McSweeney written in 2021 on how Starmer had to “embrace the conflict that is inevitable” with the left in the party was heavily influenced by Mandelson’s thinking, or in fact may have been authored by him. In the transatlantic debates ahead, Mandelson will be able to lean on his knowledge of trade built up as European commissioner between 2004 and 2008, and then as president of the Board of Trade in Gordon Brown’s administration from 2008 to 2010, having first taken the role under Blair in 1998.
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