Bad Gays

The final episode of our saga: Mandelson's fall from grace in the aftermath of Keir Starmer's election first as leader of the Labour Party and then as one of Britain's most rapidly unpopular Prime Ministers.

Can't get enough Mandelson? Subscribe now to Extra Bad Gays to hear our subscriber-only followup discussion with James Butler of the LRB and Juliet Jacques of Suite 212.

Mandelson knows too much, understands too much, to be left out of the equation. It’s because he’s sly and underhanded and deceitful that people need him, because it’s a political system that works on those qualities. This is court politics; it’s what Mandelson is a master of, it’s what Epstein was a master of, it’s what Trump is a master of: the informal power of relationships.

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SOURCES:

Mandelson and the making of New Labour, Donald Macintyre

Mandy: The Unauthorised Biography of Peter Mandelson, Paul Routledge

Outrageous! The Story of Section 28 and Britain's Battle for LGBT Education, Paul Baker

Tory Pride and Prejudice: The Conservative Party and homosexual law reform, Michael McManus

The Rivals : the intimate story of a political marriage, James Naughtie

Bloody Nasty People, Daniel Trilling

Clampdown: Pop-Cultural wars on class and Gender, Rhian E. Jones

1997: The Future That Never Happened, Richard Power Sayeed

Authentocrats: Culture, Politics and the New Seriousness, Joe Kennedy

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https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/media-the-dirty-world-of-mr-punch-1187016.html#:~:text=Last%20week%20an%20internationally%20famous,then%2Downers%2C%20United%20Newspapers.

https://jennifrazer.com/mandelson-judaism-lord-levy-jc-dad/

https://johnmajorarchive.org.uk/1993/10/08/mr-majors-speech-to-1993-conservative-party-conference-8-october-1993/

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https://newhistories.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/volumes/2011-12/volume-3/issue-7-open-theme/the-long-road-to-repeal-the-labour-party-and-section-28

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jan/25/mandelson.labour6

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https://www.thepinknews.com/2020/12/23/peter-mandelson-boris-johnson-bum-boys-about-homophobic-attack/

https://petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/outing/catalyst/

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https://www.theguardian.com/century/1990-1999/Story/0,,112756,00.html

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https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/see-epsteins-full-birthday-book-with-alleged-personal-messages-from-trump-clinton-and-others

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdr6yjzkvx6o

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/630399.stm

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https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68079300

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/peter-mandelson-why-its-taken-me-27-years-to-marry-the-love-of-my-life-3gx8cfgs5

https://www.stonewall.org.uk/resources/lgbtq-hubs/trans-hub/gender-recognition-act-2004

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2007/05/10/the-great-performer-leaves-the-stage

https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/extras/lgbt09.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/oct/13/mandelson-lords

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/oct/13/mandelson-gayrights

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2008/oct/25/corfu-rothschild-russia-osborne-travel

https://www.politico.eu/article/mandelson-backed-by-commission/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/22/former-trump-campaign-chief-paul-manafort-offered-help-putin-russia

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article384041.ece

https://www.scotsman.com/news/italian-shoe-magnate-steps-forward-to-sponsor-spruce-up-for-colosseum-1693900

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000-excess-deaths-in-great-britain-linked-to-austerity-finds-study

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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/benefits-dwp-cuts-conservatives-austerity-cap-b2956620.html

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour/peter-mandelson-firm-lobbies-tiktok-shell-water-labour-3409771

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2012/03/labour-party-within-progress

https://labourlist.org/2013/06/falkirk-clp-placed-in-special-measures-over-selection-allegations/

https://labourlist.org/2017/02/mandelson-i-am-working-every-day-to-bring-down-corbyn/

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/apr/27/mandelson-and-mcsweeney-a-partnership-forged-on-winning-and-crushing-the-labour-left

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-labour-leadership-election-abolish-tuition-fees-nationalisation-396843

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/keir-starmers-not-driving-the-train-confessions-of-his-inner-circle-mq2kbg39x

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/14/who-is-josh-simons-labour-mp-andy-burnham

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/06/labour-thinktank-close-to-morgan-mcsweeney-allegedly-paid-firm-to-investigate-journalists

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/apr/27/mandelson-and-mcsweeney-a-partnership-forged-on-winning-and-crushing-the-labour-left

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/20/labour-minister-falsely-linked-journalists-to-pro-kremlin-network-in-emails-to-gchq

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/28/keir-starmer-leadership-labour-leader-left

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peterchrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69b13135cdd628b29e3495f8/V1_FINAL.pdf

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https://www.ft.com/content/fdf7afe9-9ad3-4325-8843-f590dcdd7e57?syn-25a6b1a6=1

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/06/peter-mandelson-election-labour-insiders

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/apr/20/peter-mandelson-a-timeline-of-his-appointment-as-uk-ambassadorto-the-us

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https://www.ft.com/content/fdf7afe9-9ad3-4325-8843-f590dcdd7e57?syn-25a6b1a6=1

Today we are reaching the next to last chapter––for now!––of the Mandelson story.

Listen to the sixth and final episode now by subscribing to Extra Bad Gays on Patreon.

As we are recording this, on 18th May 2026, the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, is facing a potential leadership challenge and a collapse in legitimacy following two major crises, both of these the responsibility of Peter Mandelson; one, directly, the other a consequence of the changes of which Mandelson has been the driving force of for almost 40 years. The first crisis is Starmer’s appointment of Mandelson as Ambassador to the United States, despite his having failed a Foreign Office vetting procedure, and the fallout of that once Mandelson was outed as a close long-term friend of the child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, to whom it’s alleged he passed sensitive government and financial information while in power. The other is the complete decimation of Labour in the recent local elections, and in elections for the Welsh and Scottish devolved assemblies, which saw the party lose close to 1500 local council seats and, in Wales, lose a century-long winning streak as the country’s largest party. In today’s episode we’ll talk about Mandelson’s journey from MP to peer to Ambassador, and we’ll also discuss how his enormous influence over that time, usually behind the scenes, has led to a Labour Party and indeed the two party system itself on the edge of total collapse.

Peter Mandelson has been the definitive comeback kid of British politics, and it’s impossible to ever rule out his return.

Listen to Episode Five right now and get Extra Bad Gays every month by subscribing on Patreon!

Today, we will learn why he got that reputation as we look at Mandelson in power. The Millennium Dome, a Y2K fever dream! His public outing! A wider cultural shift in attitudes towards gay men, one which contributed to the idea that poofs were everywhere at the top of society! Resignations, and returns!

This week, on Mandelson: A Homosexual History, we cover the 1992 UK election and the birth of New Labour.

Subscribe on Patreon to support our work and stay a week ahead on this miniseries!

If Huw's Margaret Thatcher wasn't enough to turn your stomach, try his John Major on for size. Neil Kinnock loses the 1992 election. John Smith becomes leader of the Labour Party, flanked by two feuding up-and-coming reformers named Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. Peter Mandelson buys a lovely home in Notting Hill with questionable financing, and sets himself to defeating Clause IV once and for all. The exciting but fundamentally reactionary Cool Britannia cultural moment helps us understand how tentative New Labour were about rocking the cultural boat. Their victory in 1997 was more about stasis than change.

Subscribe on Patreon to hear Episode Three now, get our monthly Extra Bad Gays episodes, and stay a week ahead on the miniseries.

Last week we looked at Mandelson’s early years, and his move from a flirtation with Marxism to being firmly on the right of the Labour Party. We also discussed the left-right split in the Labour Party, and how, in the 1980s, that became a full blown civil war. This week, it's time for the 1987 General Election, and for the paranoid homophobia of late-Eighties Britain: section 28, sleaze, AIDS panic, and tabloid hell.