The line between pulling off a diplomatic masterstroke and setting up an accident waiting to happen can be a fine one. In the seven-month fable of Peter Mandelson’s UK ambassadorship to the US, the crossing of that line has created a political polycrisis for which it is hard to think of a parallel.

In the week after the prime minister, despite his efforts, lost his deputy, and the week before the American president arrives in the UK for an unprecedented – and unpopular – second state visit, Keir Starmer, despite his efforts, has lost the person he controversially personally appointed to the UK’s highest diplomatic post. Worse, over a matter that also happens to implicate Donald Trump – a matter journalists could conceivably raise at the president’s and prime minister’s press conference during the forthcoming state visit.

The risk in the main was in the ambassadorship itself. The US is the UK’s closest and most important international ally and the Washington ambassador is the lynchpin of that relationship. They are the UK’s eyes and ears, permanently operating at the centre of the political and social life of the US capital in the way that no other country’s ambassador has been, is, or could be.

But the risk was also in the man. Prince of Darkness, Third Man, (only last week: “my familiar role as professional villain”), possessed of a public career already involving two high-profile reputation-wracking resignations, Mandelson has always been weapons-grade Marmite.

It........

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