Machiavellian Mandelson throws hack under the bus

Peter Mandelson has performed quite the mea culpa in order to secure his new role as the UK’s man in Washington – but the supposed media mastermind threw a well-liked journalist under the bus in doing so.

Mandy, Keir Starmer’s pick to be the new British ambassador to the US, was under pressure after past remarks emerged in which he described President Trump, not entirely unreasonably, as a “bully” and “reckless and a danger to the world”.

Speaking to the leader of the free world’s favourite media outlet, Fox News, Mandelson today described his 2019 comments as “ill-judged and wrong” and the new president had won “fresh respect” from him.

But, rather than owning the blame entirely, Mandelson attempted to shift some of it to the fevered Brexit wars – and some to the unfortunate hack who wrote down his words all those years ago.

“I made those remarks six years ago in 2019, led rather along this by an Italian journalist,” he said. “It was a time in Britain, by the way, with very fraught politics and there was high emotion about many things in Britain at that time.”

That Italian journalist, however, was not some amateur blogger but Antonello Guerrera, then as now UK and Ireland correspondent for the liberal La Repubblica newspaper and a highly respected member of the Westminster lobby.

While Mandelson seems to be road-testing the Machiavellian arts he’s going to need on Capitol Hill, his intervention is being regarded as poor form by hacks back home.