Why Starmer picked Mandelson for Washington

Here are a few more thoughts about Mandelson’s appointment to be the UK’s person in Washington.

First, as I said on News at Ten last night, this is as important an appointment as to a very senior cabinet post, because Trump will be the most consequential US president of our age, for the UK and the whole world.

Within hours of Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, the new British ambassador will have to make the case against Trump’s desires for a massive unilateral reduction in US support for Ukraine and his determination to impose significant additional tariffs on Chinese and European exports.

Tempering Trump’s challenge to the UK’s security and prosperity may require political skills above and beyond those of a conventional diplomat - Mandelson, to state the obvious, has that craft.

In the words of one senior politician, who is no friend of Mandelson, “Trump likes people he can make a connection with - and Mandy is personable and understands power and connections.”

But there are also risks, and not just that Mandelson doesn’t play golf.

One of the big reasons Mandelson is expert in trade issues is because he was EU trade commissioner.

He is a great europhile, whereas Trump calls the EU “mini China” and sees it as parasitic on the US economically and in respect of security.

Another risk is that Mandelson has never knowingly been self-deprecating or inconspicuous. He wears controversy like a designer coat and he’s been sacked from government for it twice.

It is no anomaly that Mandelson was a shoo-in for this job earlier in the autumn, till he remarked that maybe Starmer should use Farage’s good offices to build a relationship with Trump.

According to senior diplomats, that public suggestion did not endear himself to Starmer and almost cost Mandelson the keys to the UK’s magnificent DC diplomatic residence.

But Starmer, as is becoming his habit, has made a bold call in appointing him.

Whether it is the taxes he chooses to impose or the money he chooses to withhold from the vulnerable, the PM is not shying away from decisions that are neither populist or popular.

Starmer has also again manifested one of the big facts of his government, namely the influence of his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, who was only recently schmoozing Trump’s team in the US.

That mission to America represents quite an extension of the typical functions of Downing Street chiefs of staff, who are political appointees (I can’t even remember Cummings ever having quite that responsibility).

The point is that Mandelson was always McSweeney’s choice.

Others were in the frame for the plum ambassadorship, including Richard Moore, chief of Mi6, the famous “C”.

But in the end the onward march of the veterans of the Blair government proved unstoppable.

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