The New Statesman.

Over the last few days, newspapers and citizens and journalists have been scouring through the three and a half million pages of the Epstein files, released on Friday by the US Department of Justice.

Dan Needle, journalist and tax lawyer used his investigative skills to uncover some of the most explosive details,

namely relating to former business secretary and Labour peer Peter Mandelson.

He joins me today to discuss how these files could derail British politics and which big

questions remain unanswered. Before we get into the conversation, I should add,

Peter Mandelson strenuously denies all wrongdoing, and someone's name being present in the Epstein files is not an implication of guilt.

I'm Olly Doug Moore, and you're listening to Daily Politics from The New Statesman.

Dan, you've been doing some great investigative journalism into Mandelson's leaks around 2009.

I mean, to start, could you just give us an idea for perhaps listening to you

maybe weren't even that politically conscious at the time on the younger side? What was happening

in Britain around 2008, 2009? What was the political scene? Yeah, I think that's a really

important piece of this, which isn't talked about enough. So this is a time when we'd had the initial financial crisis.

Lehman's went under in August 2008.

I saw it from my office window.

People carry, whole lines, people carrying boxes out of the building.

It was massive.

I remember asking a wizened old partner how long he thought the crisis

would last. He said, it could be as long as a couple of years. I thought he was mad and depressed,

but of course it was much longer. Wind on a year later to summer 2009, autumn 2009,

which is what we're talking about. And the bank collapsing part of the crisis is kind of done mostly.

But now we have the effect on the rest of the economy, which is that the banks got in terrible trouble.

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