Epstein Files: The Gordon Brown Intervention
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told the BBC the situation facing Sir Keir Starmer is "serious" and suggested he may have been "too slow to do the right things" concerning Lord Mandelson.
He also defended him as "a man of integrity" who "wants to do the right things".
He spoke to the Today programme on Radio 4 in his first interview since the latest Epstein files seemed to show Lord Mandelson gave Epstein advance notice of a €500bn bailout by the EU to save the ailing Euro in 2010.
Another included a 2009 memo in which Brown's policy adviser Nick Butler wrote about the UK's struggling economy and recommended selling off government-held assets to raise public funds.
Brown said this was "market-sensitive" information as people can make money from changes in the values of currencies.
Lord Mandelson has not given the BBC an official statement but his position is that he has not acted in any way criminally and that he was not motivated by financial gain.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | I was asked to interview Barry Gardner on Newsnight. |
| 0:09.3 | Labour MP. |
| 0:10.5 | And asked him if Kirstama should go. |
| 0:13.0 | And the following thing happened. |
| 0:15.0 | This was our manifesto, right? |
| 0:18.3 | One man, one word. |
| 0:27.7 | Change. That's what we promised. That was the whole of what we as the Labour Party promised this country. Change. This looks more like the same. Should he step down? |
| 0:36.0 | I think that he needs to think very hard |
| 0:39.3 | about what is in the country's best interest |
| 0:42.3 | and what is in his party's best interest. |
| 0:45.3 | It's a veiled yes. |
| 0:50.3 | You're saying that you don't want to say it, but you're saying it with your eyes. |
| 0:55.2 | Well, dramatic pauses can have a lot of meaning, can they? |
| 0:59.2 | I know, but I think people are speechless, aren't they? That's the other thing. |
| 1:02.9 | I think people are speechless, yeah, about the horror of what's been happening, |
| 1:06.4 | as is being revealed in the emails from Geoffrey Epstein, |
| 1:10.3 | but also the really doom-laden scenario for the government now. There's no question about that. But I just wonder, how long do you think Barry Gardner would have sat there if you hadn't said, you're saying it with your eyes? Yes, I don't think he would have spoken. Well, he still was sitting there now. The studio, some floors down from us on a Saturday newscast. I don't think he would have spoken. I really don't. |
| 1:28.0 | It reminded me of another quite awkward moment, |
| 1:31.2 | which was again one of those moments of sort of, |
| 1:34.5 | Liz Truss, Birmingham, Tory conference, |
| 1:38.4 | when she was in enormous trouble and the world was in meltdown. |
... |
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