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Raymond J. de Souza: Keir Starmer catches shrapnel from Epstein files

The documents were aimed at U.S. targets but exploded in London

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U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is having a very bad month, perhaps so bad that his premiership is fatally wounded. He has apologized for spectacularly poor judgment in appointing Lord Peter Mandelson, in December 2024, as the U.K. ambassador to the United States. Starmer sacked Mandelson nine months later for being rather more friendly with Jeffrey Epstein than he had previously allowed.

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When it was revealed recently that Mandelson had allegedly passed government secrets to Epstein for potential financial benefit, the police were called in and Mandelson was forced out of the Labour Party and the House of Lords.

Raymond J. de Souza: Keir Starmer catches shrapnel from Epstein files Back to video

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Starmer clearly judged incorrectly what the British people would tolerate in their diplomatic representatives. But was his judgement wrong about the kind of man who might wield influence with the Trump administration?

This week the high-profile Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, revealed under oath that he too, like Mandelson, had publicly lied about his contacts with Epstein. Just last October he said (not under oath) that, after meeting Epstein in 2005 as next door neighbours in Manhattan, he immediately resolved with his wife to “never be in a room with that disgusting person ever again.”

The Lutnicks found off-putting the tour Epstein gave of his home, featuring a prominent massage table which the host presented in a creepy fashion.

Then in 2012, Lutnick packed up the whole gang — wife, his four children, nannies, other friends, their children, their nannies — and visited Epstein for lunch on his notorious private island. All very wholesome, Lutnick insisted. No massage-table tour for the little ones. Still, he had lied.

In Washington, lies are just the lubricating grease of the Trump administration. Nothing new to see here.

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In London, Mandelson’s lies were politically lethal. In the last week, Sir Keir sacked his chief-of-staff, communications director and, astonishingly, the cabinet secretary, the nation’s top civil servant. No Westminster prime minister has had such a costly scandal since Justin Trudeau lost his attorney general, president of the treasury board, principal secretary and clerk of the Privy Council (Ottawa’s equivalent of cabinet secretary) over his attempts to shield SNC-Lavalin from prosecution.

The culture of Westminster and the culture of Washington were revealed this week to be starkly different. In Mandelson, Sir Keir chose a man he considered well-suited to the Trump administration. He was corrupt in public administration, having had to resign twice from cabinet in 1999 and 2001 over allegations of financial chicanery. He was inclined to associate with rich men of dubious morals. He found it easy to be dishonest. So easy that more than thirty years ago he acquired the nickname “Prince of Darkness” for being ruthless and reckless in partisan rhetoric. He was endlessly adaptable in subordinating principles to seek power.

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Who better to impress Donald Trump? He would be as comfortable in the White House as the tech oligarchs and the head of FIFA.

It went well for the first six months, while Trump resisted fulfilling his campaign promise to release the Epstein files. But Trump could not protect Epstein’s friends forever, and so the dam broke.

Speaking of dams, or rivers, Lutnick had another moment this week. On Monday, he met with the Maroun family, owners of the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit. The Marouns have been lobbying and spending fiercely for decades to prevent a much-needed new bridge from opening, as it would cut into their monopoly profits. The Marouns were finally defeated when Stephen Harper figured out a way to get the bridge built.

Canada paid for all of it, thereby obviating the need for approval in the Michigan legislature, and will recover the cost in tolls, after which revenue will be shared with Michigan, which would own half of it. An elegant solution.

The Gordie Howe bridge is shortly set to open. What then for a rent-seeking oligarch family aiming to profit from access to power to do? Get the Trump administration on the line. The Marouns got a sympathetic hearing from Lutnick, who called Trump immediately with the plight of a family looking to subvert the common good to line its own pockets. The president was typically sympathetic and that very night, after careful reflection, threatened on social media to block the bridge from opening — while also predicting that the Chinese would banish “ice hockey” from Canada.

Is it possible to imagine — aside from the Gulf sheikhs — anyone better suited for such an environment than the former Lord Mandelson? Unlike Prince Andrew after Epstein, he still retains his title as Prince of Darkness.

Sir Keir’s mistake was to forget that his ambassador to the Trump administration was acting on behalf of His Majesty The King. Given that the King himself was hastily stuffing Andrew, quondam Duke of York, into the stables at Sandringham, never to be seen in public again, the malodour of Mandelson was no longer tolerable.

Political passions unleashed take their own course. Four years ago the trucker convoy bore down upon Ottawa, protesting the Trudeau government’s pandemic policies. There was some confusion amongst them about how Westminster constitutional monarchies work, as appeals were made to the Governor General to intervene. In the event, the big rigs stopped short of Rideau Hall and ran over Erin O’Toole instead, who was flattened by the Conservative caucus at the height of the convoy protest.

The prime minister who made policy doubled down, invoking — unlawfully, it was later adjudicated — the Emergencies Act, while the man who made no policy, the leader of the Opposition, was tossed to the curb, truck claxons triumphantly blaring at his defeat.

Those clamouring for the release of Epstein files were aiming at Trump and his coterie, or the Clintons and their coterie. Instead they blew up Sir Keir’s inner circle, and even touched the court of the King.

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