Why is Keir Starmer standing by Jeffrey Epstein's 'best pal'?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 10 September 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lord Mandelson has admitted there may be more embarrassing emails and correspondence between himself and the notorious paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The US ambassador was speaking to The Sun the day after a birthday message emerged calling Epstein his “best pal“, and just as the Telegraph revealed details of a business deal that Mandelson worked on with Epstein AFTER he had been convicted.
Keir Starmer has stood by his ambassador but failed to answer Kemi’s PMQs question - did he know about these dealings when he originally signed off the job? Can Mandelson stay in his role? And why is Starmer determined to defend him.
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.7 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:13.3 | I don't believe I'm named in Epstein files. |
| 0:17.0 | I have no doubt at all that there's a lot of traffic, correspondence, exchanges between us, |
| 0:23.6 | absolutely. And we know those are going to surface, we know they're going to come out, |
| 0:30.6 | we know they're going to be very embarrassing and they know that I'm going profoundly to regret |
| 0:35.6 | ever having met him and been introduced to him in the first place. |
| 0:40.0 | But I can't rewrite history. |
| 0:42.3 | What I can do, what I can do, is express my profound sympathy for those who are badly treated by him. |
| 0:49.8 | And secondly, I can accept. |
| 0:51.9 | Yes, I can accept that I continued my association with him for too long. |
| 0:56.0 | That is Lord Peter Mandelson, our ambassador in Washington, admitting that more very embarrassing |
| 1:02.9 | details of his friendship with Geoffrey Epstein will come out. |
| 1:06.5 | It's after a telegraph scoop, which discusses a deal that Mandelson and Epstein were trying to broker |
| 1:13.8 | after Epstein had been convicted of paedophilia. |
| 1:19.6 | Why is Stama, our Prime Minister, determined to support the man who calls Geoffrey Epstein his best pal. |
| 1:28.5 | Welcome to the Newsagents. |
| 1:34.7 | The Newsagents. |
| 1:36.8 | It's Emily. |
| 1:37.6 | And it's John. |
| 1:38.4 | And as we start to record at Quarter to One, |
| 1:42.2 | one of those women who has gone for the deputy labour leadership |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Global, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Global and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.