The best that can be said about Lord Mandelson’s change of heart over Donald Trump is that it shows how much he wants to be the next British ambassador to Washington. He is expected to be confirmed in the role shortly. Even so, Mandelson was taking no chances in an interview he gave to Fox News, widely believed to be Trump’s favourite TV viewing.
Peter Mandelson is just the latest Labour figure to undergo a Damascene conversion on Trump
The Labour peer wants everyone (especially Trump) to know that his previous criticism of the American leader was “ill-judged and wrong”. In previous years, he has described the president as “reckless and a danger to the world”. In a 2018 interview, he called Trump a “bully”. He could not have been more wrong in doing so, apparently. Mandelson explained away his views back then as due to a time of “fraught politics in Britain” when there was “high emotion about many things” in the country. No one explains away the inexplicable quite like Mandelson.
He was keen to lavish praise on the US leader, acknowledging his “extraordinary’ second mandate, praising him for giving “ leadership to all the freedom-loving democracies in the world.” Mandelson told viewers that Trump was a “nice person”. More fawning of the highest calibre. The Labour grandee is nothing if not good at spotting changes in the political weather:
“Frankly, I think President Trump could become one of the most consequential American presidents I have known in my adult life. There are so many threats and challenges the world is facing at the moment. It takes courage, somebody, sometimes, who’s prepared to be argumentative and, indeed, disruptive, not just take business as usual. With the approach that he’s taking to government, which frankly seems to us in Britain so much more organised, so much more coherent, he seems to be so much clearer in what he wants to do, we take encouragement from that. That gives us greater confidence.”
Mandelson’s changed views on the US president won’t completely quieten Republican allies of Trump who have questioned Keir Starmer’s decision to replace Karen Pierce, a career diplomat, with the Labour peer.
Chris LaCivita, a Trump campaign adviser, has described Mandelson as an “absolute moron” and suggested that he should “stay home”.
But the Labour grandee is relaxed, insisting that he would be welcome at the White House: “I’ve heard nothing from the president or the White House or anyone working for him that suggests that there’s going to be any difficulty about my appointment,” he said.
More significantly, Trump’s team is said to be concerned about his links to China and the client list of his consultancy, Global Counsel. The firm advised the Chinese fashion company Shein last year. Mandelson has also held meetings with senior Chinese Communist party figures as recently as 2023. A dossier of his connections with Beijing has reportedly been handed to the FBI. In 2018, Mandelson criticised Trump’s hawkish views on China, saying they threatened free trade and that Trump was a “bully and mercantilist”. On China too, Mandelson is a changed man. He thinks America and Britain can “outsmart and keep ahead of the curve” when it comes to China, and he praised Trump as a leader who was not “naive” about China.
Peter Mandelson is just the latest senior Labour figure to undergo something of a Damascene conversion when it comes to all things Trump. David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, has been busy showering praise on the president after previously calling him “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”. One might be forgiven for thinking it difficult to disown such firm views but Lammy has shamelessly done just that. He dismissed his earlier views
as “old news” and recently called Trump “funny, friendly and warm”. Needs must. Britain wants a trade deal with the US. But it does nothing for Lammy’s political credibility.
Mandelson’s change of heart over Trump is cut from the same cloth. He could hardly function effectively as Britain’s most senior diplomat in Washington without in some way explaining away his earlier hostility. Voters in Britain might take a more sceptical view of this ability to move from castigating to obsequious in record time. Is it any wonder that people widely distrust politicians, the likes of Mandelson and Lammy, who are prepared so easily to disown everything they profess to believe when it suits them?
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