Hello and welcome to episode 5 of Mandelson, a homosexual history, a special podcast from the creators of bad gays.

My name is Ben Miller. I'm a writer, historian, and member of the board of the Shullis Museum in Berlin,

and also at work on a biography of the fashion designer Rudy Gernrick.

And my name's Hugh Lemmy. I'm a writer and author. So last week, we left off Peter

Mandelson with a series of scandals during his time as a minister in the governments of Tony Blair

in the era of new labor. And people were making the confident prediction that his career in politics was

toast. So where are we picking up this week, Hugh? Well, Ben, today we're coming towards the

close, the last couple of chapters of the Mandelson story. And honestly, I think that story couldn't

be more pertinent at his current moment. As we're recording this on the 18th of May,

2026, the Prime Minister,

Zakia Starrma, is facing a potential leadership challenge and a collapse in legitimacy following two

major crises. What's interesting is I think both these crises are the responsibility of Peter

Mandelson, one quite directly. The other are consequences of the changes of which

Mandelson has been the driving force for almost 40 years. So the first crisis is Starmes' appointment

of Mandelson as ambassador to the United States, despite his having failed a foreign office

vetting procedure. At the fallout of that, once Mandelson was outed as a close long-term friend of the child sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.

The other is the complete decimation of labour in the recent local council elections

and in national elections for the Welsh and Scottish devolved assemblies, which saw the party lose

close to 1,500 local council seats and in Wales to lose a century-long winning

streak as the country's largest party. So in today's episode, we'll talk about Mandelson's journey

from PM to Pierre and we'll leave off as he is about to become ambassador. And we'll also

discuss how his enormous influence over

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