Some revelations about Mandelson may be new. Concerns about his appointment as US ambassador most certainly aren’t. An apology from the government is the very least we should expect. 🧵:

This is new to me. We knew that Epstein was working with Kremlin official Belyakov to circumvent sanctions post Crimea, but his eagerness to help Putin beat the West predates that “Reinventing the financial system”

bsky.app/profile/brid... "Putin sees Trump as the perfect candidate—frankly, to bring down the United States." – Fiona Hill 1.05 in documentary trailer🎥👇

This exchange of emails came three weeks before the Putin Trump summit in Helsinki.

No one should ever forget this moment in 2018. - They had a private conversation and told interpreters NOT to record or take notes - Trump later told reporters he trusted Putin's word over US intelligence reports - Before he did so, he walked out on stage looking like someone who just got busted:

Since a lot of the coverage is omitting this detail: The Kennedy Center HAD a $250 million renovation and expansion just a few years ago, in 2019.

“I think the issue is that because I was a gay man in his circle, I was kept separate from what he was doing in the sexual side of his life.” Just a couple of weeks ago Mandelson was claiming total ignorance of his Epstein's sexual proclivities ...

Donald Trump sharp as a tack

How long before Starmer exercises his own autonomous power to kick McSweeney entirely out of Labour politics? (Full background is gristly: bsky.app/profile/pros...)

If Mandelson mentored McSweeney as he effectively appointed Starmer as leader, Starmer finally turning on them both may, ironically, be the making of him. bsky.app/profile/pros...

I really can’t keep up with this. It’s like every vague suspicion of oligarch, finance and tech power come together - with Russian influence. Yes, you’re not imagining. Only Mandelson, Lebedev, Milner and Epstein and L’Affaire Russe

Mandelson's tetchiness when questioned is legendary (I've been on the wrong side of it). You do start to wonder whether it's genuinely just a thin-skinned personality trait, or a practised defence of someone who knew his career couldn't survive scrutiny.

More Putin Epstein emails from 2013

1. Take over one of the most prestigious arts centres in America 2. Put your buddies in charge of it 3. Insult everyone involved with it, both their work and what they believe in 4. Put your name on it 5. Shut it down entirely for two years and try to frame that as a triumph

I do hope Keir’s got a file marked “Morgan McSweeney Fingerprints”.

Amazing new tool on offshore property ownership from Dan Neidle and co. Found a few interesting results near me... taxpolicy.org.uk/2026/01/29/w...

👀👏🏻

When it comes to corruption and malfeasance, rich men turn to camels before the eye of the Neidle:

With Palantir and Mandelson both back in the news, it’s worth revisiting this — the Epstein/Mandelson/Thiel connection, and how Mandelson’s lobbying company introduced Starmer to the Palantir team bylinetimes.com/2025/09/12/p...

I like to think I’m unshockable but these latest Mandelson/Epstein revelations are so dark. Fortunately Alistair Darling had too much integrity to be swayed by this macho crap.

Epstein says “yes” he’s criminal, and “yes” he’s a sexual predator. And that dirty money can be good for other children. www.ladbible.com/news/world-n...

If asked to describe the major features of the Epstein archipelago looming out of its offshore dark money and billionaire kompromat - I’d say Putin, Trump, Musk, Bannon and Thiel And with that you have a map of our current political era

Mandelson, the supreme unreliable witness, and looking more ludicrous by the hour - still spinning after the world has resolutely stopped.

I’m not an instinctive fan of Polanski but he has a glorious and unmatched ability to make persuasive sense while simultaneously blowing polluting, ludicrous, questioning out of the political water.

Horrific story. (Full piece here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...) And Aaron Swan’s physical resemblance to Elon Musk is… uncanny.

And a proper metaphor for the state of the world where the fata morgana of human decency crowning the powerful is finally getting punched off.

Oh, look. #Trumpleweed

“Yes, obviously” Two words to shut down the question and still communicate to everyone watching “what a stupid thing to ask”.

Most of Epstein’s victims were either too frightened to come forward, or silenced through legal threats. Oh, and here’s a senior British politician giving Epstein tips on how to silence them

Elon Musk‘s insights are as dizzying as his intellect: “Space is so vast as to be beyond comprehension”. Musk's SpaceX applies to launch 1m satellites into orbit www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Brett Ratner, (he is in the Epstein files) director of Melania’s documentary backed by Amazon MGM Studios. He is seen here with Epstein associate and notorious sex trafficker Jean Luc Brunel. Jean-Luc Brunel: Epstein associate found dead in Paris prison cell www.bbc.com/news/world-e... (familiar?)

He's looting the U.S. Treasury, people. Most crooked dictators find covert ways to get rich. Trump intends to simply order his government to transfer money into his bank account.

As a side note, it’s funny to see so many of these emails with thirsty academics repeatedly enact Marx’s bit in the 1844 Manuscripts about the power of money. “Oh Mr Epstein, your house in New York is enormous and, unrelatedly, your questions at dinner were so intelligent, so insightful, so deep.”

Trump denies for a living. It’s widely regarded as his only genuine consistency. I mean, for God’s sake, even before the Epstein files became a *thing*, the list of examples was gargantuan: www.businessinsider.com/women-accuse...

Confirming our story: 👉 bylinetimes.com/2026/01/29/d... "Agents are tapping into a database, built by the data analytics company Palantir, that combines government and commercial data to identify real-time locations for individuals they are pursuing" www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/t...

Camps, where detainees can be concentrated.

Chap on the right appears to have a genuine vintage British Union of Fascists uniform on.

Making the truth subservient to mendacious (but nonetheless platformed) free speech seems a very outré form of impartiality from the country’s national, public service broadcaster.

Damn that person close to Mandelson must feel stupid now the email has been released.

Don was taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles.

Alan Partridge was rambling in Norfolk (“Rural Alan”: youtu.be/SrgjS8mSN28?...) Farage’s version was shot on the Naze, which I assume makes him some sort of Nazist.

(This is the Reform broadcast: youtu.be/SrgjS8mSN28?...)

Chris Mason manages to irritate me now via almost everything he says. He pronounces “Xi” as “gi” (as in ‘gilet’), when every other journalist manages a much better approximation via “shi”.

Trump: "Because of the cold -- extreme cold -- I personally asked President Putin not fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week. He agreed to do that."

I adore Daniel Evans as a performer but this is plain idiocy. When business/culture leaders set out to ‘break new ground’ with such astonishing naivety, cue shouts of jubilation not just in Beijing but in Moscow (etc) too. #RSC has already been joining cultural hands with China for over 10 years…

How many UK citizens actually ‘want’ to go to China? I’ve been once. Never again, thank you.

WASPI women might feel less hard done by if government showed more signs of reading things (like procurement contracts) themselves: bsky.app/profile/dier...

The reasoning McFadden presents is very curious. The issue is all about letters being/not being sent and “many people don’t read these letters anyway.” I assume this is how government ‘pragmatism’ works.

Is there any area of public provision left where the UK government is not being scammed?

Coherence and consistency (like competence) have become effectively impossible in the modern world, where allies are now enemies, adversaries friends.