Peter Mandelson’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein raises a series of detailed questions about the former minister’s conduct while in office and why the Prime Minister didn’t vet him more thoroughly. Its lasting impact will be to deepen public cynicism about politics and politicians at a time when many people already feel the system is rigged in favour of the wealthiest, writes Rebecca McQuillan

The most famous words Peter Mandelson ever uttered were that Labour was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes”.

This was in 1998 when Tony Blair had recently swept to power and senior figures were still keen to underscore Labour’s transformation from hard-line socialists to pro-business party of aspiration. Blair was famously impressed by the wealthy, particularly entrepreneurs, and the argument often made was that business dynamism made everyone better off.

But it made the party rank and file uneasy. They saw Blair, Mandelson and others cosying up to the rich and wondered if this schmoozing was just a necessary evil, or if their leaders secretly craved being part of that elite themselves.

We have our answer. Tony Blair is now worth several tens of millions as a result mainly of business consultancies and a massive property portfolio, but it’s Peter Mandelson who’s in the spotlight now. The drip-drip of documents and emails about the former Business Secretary’s relationship with the paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein paint a picture of a suburbanite from north London dazzled by a super-rich American banker with his own island.

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This weekend’s revelations – the suggestion that Epstein could have made payments totalling $75,000 to Mandelson; that Mandelson........

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