The former cabinet minister and Brussels commissioner is a consummate political networker and his appointment will be seen by supporters as a masterstroke.
But he has also been one of the most divisive figures in British politics over many years and his appointment will be seen by Labour left-wingers as an act of cronyism by the PM.
Lord Mandelson had to resign from Tony Blair‘s cabinet twice, first over an undeclared bank loan and then over intervening in a passport application by a top Indian businessman.
A plum job
The Washington role, seen as the most glittering diplomatic post in the UK government, is due to become vacant when current ambassador Karen Pierce steps down early next year.
The perks of the job include the luxurious ambassador’s residence in Massachusetts Avenue, a magnificent Queen Anne mansion designed by top architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.
Lord Mandelson’s appointment is the first political rather than diplomatic appointment to Washington since Peter Jay, former prime minister James Callaghan’s son-in-law, in 1977.
Image: Mandelson alongside Tony Blair and Bill Clinton in Northern Ireland in 2000
Farage among big name backers
Sir Keir is said by insiders to believe he has the trade experience and networking abilities to boost UK interests in the US during the tricky period of a Trump second presidency – with the prospect of tariffs looming.
Crucially, he has become a close ally of Sir Keir’s new chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and is backed by Foreign Secretary David Lammy. It is claimed Lord Mandelson was seen in the Foreign Office last week.
And significantly, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, just back from talks with Trump allies, has said Lord Mandelson is “a very clever man” who can “master his brief” and would be “respected” by the president-elect’s team.
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Trump’s threat of tariffs explained
The cap on a high-profile career
His appointment is not a total surprise. For the past month, he has been seen by Labour insiders as the clear frontrunner on a shortlist of four, also including former foreign secretary David Miliband.
The others were Baroness Ashton, also a former senior Brussels official, and Baroness Amos, a former international development secretary under Mr Blair.
Mr Miliband’s name was touted by Sue Gray, Sir Keir’s now ousted chief of staff, while Baronesses Amos and Ashton, who have strong links to the Democrats, were seen as a good fit if Kamala Harris had won the presidential election.
For Lord Mandelson, the appointment is likely to cap a high-profile political career which began as a TV producer and then Labour’s director of communications under Neil Kinnock in 1985.
Image: Mandelson was a speechwriter for former Labour leader Neil Kinnock
‘A fighter, not a quitter…’
He was seen as a brilliant if ruthless spin doctor, who masterminded the birth of New Labour but would berate newspaper editors when unfavourable stories were written by their political journalists.
He became MP for Hartlepool in 1992 and helped propel Mr Blair to the leadership of the party after John Smith’s death in 1994, a move that led to a bitter feud with Gordon Brown.
Then he got his first cabinet job, trade and industry secretary, in 1998, but was forced to quit months later after failing to declare a home loan from Labour millionaire Geoffrey Robinson to his building society.
He bounced back as Northern Ireland secretary in 1999, but was forced to resign a second time over claims he helped businessman Srichand Hinduja with an application for UK citizenship.
When he held his seat in Hartlepool in the 2001 general election, he made a passionate and defiant victory speech in which he declared: “I’m a fighter, not a quitter.”
Image: Mandelson was MP for Hartlepool from 1992 until 2004
…until he was
Yet three years later he did quit as an MP, when he became a trade commissioner in Brussels, which supporters in his new post claim gave him vital experience in trade talks with president-elect Trump.
But in his most spectacular political comeback until now, in 2008 his old foe Gordon Brown, by now prime minister but facing challenges to his leadership, brought him back as business secretary with a peerage.
A year later Mr Brown awarded him the grand title, previously held by Michael Heseltine under John Major, of first secretary of state, a position he held until Labour’s election defeat in 2010.
Image: Mandelson was brought back into the fold by Gordon Brown ahead of the 2010 election
Blair’s famous quote
But he was very much a Blairite rather than a soulmate of Mr Brown. And in the run-up to Sir Keir’s election victory this year he was back in the fold, offering advice on campaigning and policy.
Acknowledging that Mr Mandelson was a controversial and divisive figure, Mr Blair declared in 1996: “My project will be complete when the Labour Party learns to love Peter Mandelson.”
Clearly the current Labour leadership loves him sufficiently to hand him this plum job, though many on the left of the party will be furious about his appointment.
A man who murdered a 14-year-old boy with a samurai sword as he walked to school in east London has been sentenced to life in prison.
Marcus Arduini Monzo, 37, nearly decapitated Daniel Anjorin during a 20-minute rampage in which he attacked five others in Hainault on 30 April last year.
Mr Justice Bennathan told Monzo on Friday that he would serve a minimum of 40 years in prison.
Including time he has already served in custody, it means he will be in prison for 38 years and 309 days before he is eligible for parole, at which point he would be at least 75 years old – though he may never be released.
Image: Daniel Anjorin. Pic: Metropolitan Police.
Image: Marcus Arduini Monzo. Pic: Metropolitan Police
Handing down the sentence, Mr Justice Bennathan said: “In Hainault, east London, just before 7am on 30 April last year, the weather was good, and the streets were starting to fill with people on their way to work and even a few children heading off early to school.
“Over the 20 minutes that followed, that peaceful, busy scene was devastated as members of the public were attacked, police officers were gravely injured, a couple were terrified in their own home and a clever, talented young boy was killed.
“You, Marcus, did all of that. Daniel was a clever boy, he was gifted musically and played a variety of sports well. His loss is devastating to his parents, his brother and sister and his grandparents
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“I am very conscious that no sentence I can pass can even begin to temper Daniel’s family’s grief.”
Image: Judge
Daniel’s father Dr Ebenezer Anjorin spoke outside the court alongside Daniel’s mother, Grace Anjorin, after Monzo’s sentencing.
He said: “This has been a painful and deeply traumatic chapter in our lives. No verdict or sentence can bring back our son, Daniel, who we loved so dearly.
“But we are grateful that justice has been served. Daniel was taken from us in a way that no family should ever have to endure.
“His life had so much potential ahead. He was gifted academically, was kind and had a generous spirit that touched everyone who knew him. We carry that light with us even in this dark time.”
The family thanked police, the prosecution team and “all those who worked tirelessly to seek the truth”.
Mr Anjorin added that the family would “honour Daniel’s memory not in the shadow of this tragedy, but through the love and happiness that he brought to us and all those who knew him”.
Image: Daniel Anjorin’s parents make a statement outside court
Earlier, in a victim impact statement read to the court, Dr Anjorin condemned Monzo’s “wicked” actions and said that he could not begin to describe the “pain and anguish” the family felt at losing Daniel.
Mr Anjorin said: “We will not see him get married or have children. All the normal things parents hope for their children. All these hopes and aspirations have been cruelly snatched away from us through the wicked actions of Marcus Monzo.
“It has been the worst nightmare experience of our lives. To have to go through the pain of losing a child in such a cruel and savage way. No family should have to go through this.”
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Mr Justice Bennathan told Monzo that he would serve a minimum of 40 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Monzo tried “to kill as many people as he could” while under the influence of cannabis after he skinned and deboned his pet cat Wizard.
Monzo, a Spanish-Brazilian national from Newham in east London, admitted two charges of possessing an offensive weapon relating to two swords, which he said he bought for display purposes.
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Hainault sword attack like ‘horror movie’
He claimed he had no memory of carrying out the attacks and denied Daniel’s murder, along with four charges of attempted murder, wounding with intent, aggravated burglary and possession of a bladed article.
He was found guilty of Daniel’s murder and three charges of attempted murder at the Old Bailey on Wednesday.
Monzo was cleared of one count of attempted murder – instead found guilty of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm – and convicted of aggravated burglary and possession of a bladed article.
During the trial, the jury was shown CCTV footage from the morning of the attack, with audible screams in one clip as Monzo drove his grey Ford Transit van at speed into pedestrian Donato Iwule.
Mr Iwule told jurors: “I thought I was dying” and “I saw blood coming out of my neck”, after he was struck with a sword before running away.
Witnesses described how Monzo was running around “like a maniac” and “looked a bit mad, like there was nothing there”.
Daniel, who had left home at around 7am wearing headphones and school sports clothes, suffered “a near-decapitation” when Monzo attacked him with the weapon from behind, prosecutor Tom Little KC told the jury.
PC Yasmin Mechem-Whitfield chased the armed attacker through alleyways before Monzo struck her three times with the 60cm blade using “extreme force”, the court heard.
Image: Officers attempted to arrest Monzo, spraying pepper spray and trying to strike him with a baton. Pic: Met Police
Image: Inspector Moloy Campbell was slashed on the hand as he raised his baton against Monzo. Pic: Met Police
He then entered a nearby house through the back door and walked upstairs before attacking sleeping couple Sindy Arias and Henry De Los Rios Polania, who he asked: “Do you believe in God?”
Mr Little said their lives were only spared because their four-year-old daughter, who was sleeping nearby, woke up and started to cry.
Monzo, who had been cornered by police, also struck Inspector Moloy Campbell once with the sword before he was finally disarmed and arrested after trying to climb onto a garage to escape.
Two men and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of a terror offence after two aircraft were damaged at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, police have said.
A second woman has also been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.
Counter Terrorism Policing South East said in a statement: “A 29-year-old woman of no fixed abode, and two men; aged 36 and 24, both from London, were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, contrary to Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
“A 41-year-old woman, of no fixed abode, was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.”
Image: The back of one of the engines covered in paint
Police said the arrests on Thursday in Newbury in Berkshire, and in London, “are in connection with an incident in the early hours of [last] Friday during which damage was caused to two aircraft at RAF Brize Norton”.
The four people are currently in custody while enquiries are ongoing, police added.
Palestine Action said the arrests “further demonstrate that proscription is not about enabling prosecutions under terrorism laws – it’s about cracking down on non-violent protests which disrupt the flow of arms to Israel during its genocide in Palestine”.
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The group posted a video online claiming it was behind the vandalism at the Oxfordshire airbase last Friday, saying activists had damaged two military planes at the base.
Palestine Action – which focuses its campaigns on multinational arms dealers and has previously targeted corporate banks – said two activists “broke into the largest air force base in Britain and used electric scooters to swiftly manoeuvre towards the planes”.
Repurposed fire extinguishers were used to spray red paint into the turbine engines of two Airbus Voyagers, while further damage was made using crowbars.
“Red paint, symbolising Palestinian bloodshed was also sprayed across the runway and a Palestine flag was left on the scene,” a statement by the group said.
Brize Norton is the largest RAF station, with approximately 5,800 service personnel, 300 civilian staff and 1,200 contractors.
A security review was launched across the “whole defence estate” following the breach, which was condemned as “absolutely staggering” by Ben Obese-Jecty, a Tory MP and former Army officer.
Image: Police remove a person taking part in a Palestine Action demonstration in London on 23 June. Pic: PA
Image: A Palestine Action supporter during a march in London. Pic: PA
Sir Keir Starmer condemned the “act of vandalism” as “disgraceful”, adding: “Our Armed Forces represent the very best of Britain and put their lives on the line for us every day. It is our responsibility to support those who defend us.”
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said on Monday that Palestine Action will be proscribed as a terrorist organisation following the breach at RAF Brize Norton.
She said a draft proscription order will be laid in parliament next week, and if passed, it will make it illegal to be a member of, or invite support for, Palestine Action.
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What’s happening to Palestine Action?
Proscription can lead to prison sentences of up to 14 years for some offences, although some breaches are punishable with fines.
Saeed Taji Farouky, a member of the group, told Sky News the proscription was “completely irrational” and “without precedent”.
He branded it a “knee-jerk reaction from the government” because the group “was able to humiliate them and show serious flaws in the defences of the RAF base”.
A man seen “smiling” on CCTV after stabbing his wife to death as she pushed their seven-month-old baby in a pram has been found guilty of murder.
Habibur Masum, 26, launched the “ferocious” attack on 27-year-old Kulsuma Akter after tracing her to a refuge where she went to escape his “violence, jealousy and controlling behaviour”, a court heard.
She suffered more than 25 knife injuries after Masum found her through her phone location and confronted her in a street in Bradford, West Yorkshire, on 6 April last year.
Image: Kulsuma Akter was stabbed to death in Bradford. Pic: Family handout/PA
Image: Habibur Masum. Pic: West Yorkshire Police
After fleeing the scene, he got on a bus where CCTV footage showed him smiling, prosecutor Steve Wood KC told Bradford Crown Court.
He said the image “removed all possible doubt” about his intent and state of mind.
“There were no tears, there was no distress. Perhaps, members of the jury, the smile you can clearly see form as he gets on that bus is as a result of him thinking at that point he’s getting away. The smiling killer,” he told the court.
Image: Habibur Masum on a bus prior to the murder. Pic: West Yorkshire Police/PA
After a four-day manhunt, Masum was arrested 150 miles away in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, where he lived when the couple first came to the UK, having met and married in Bangladesh.
He had already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and possession of a knife but denied murder, claiming he had intended to kill himself in front of his wife but “totally lost control”.
On Friday, Masum was convicted of murder, alongside one count of assault, making threats to kill, and one charge of stalking. He was cleared of another charge of assault.
He had no visible reaction as the verdicts were read out. Judge Mr Justice Cotter told him he will be sentenced on 22 July, when the minimum term for his life sentence will be decided.
Image: Masum seen smiling on CCTV. Pic: West Yorkshire Police
Told social worker husband ‘would kill her one day’
Mr Wood described Masum’s relationship with his wife as “abusive… characterised by his jealousy, possessiveness and controlling behaviour”.
After moving to Oldham, Greater Manchester, together in 2022, she left him – moving in first with her brother in July 2023, before being relocated to the Bradford refuge by social services in January 2024.
She left the relationship after he held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her in response to a “completely innocuous” message she received from a male colleague in November 2023, the court was told.
Ms Atker told a social worker afterwards that she “believed that one day her husband would kill her”.
Masum denied the November incident and claimed his wife had fabricated a domestic violence case against him as a way to stay in the UK – as he wanted to return to Bangladesh.
He was subject to court bail conditions ordering him to keep away from her at the time of the murder.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigated both West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester Police’s prior contact with Ms Atker, saying in a statement on Friday that the probe concluded in December – but will not be made public so as not to prejudice the victim’s inquest.
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‘He walked away and left her there to die’
3pm attack in front of onlookers
During the trial, Mr Wood told the jury Masum managed to track Ms Akter to Bradford and, days before the attack, tried to lure her into leaving the refuge by pretending to be from a GP’s surgery and offering her fake appointments.
She was walking with a friend and pushing her son in a pram at 3pm on the day she died when she was confronted by Masum, who she thought was in Spain.
CCTV showed Masum walking with Ms Akter until he stopped her, spun her and the pram around, and pulled a knife from his jacket.
Image: Footage of Masum being arrested. Pic: West Yorkshire Police/PA
“He tried to encourage Kulsuma back into the relationship,” West Yorkshire Police’s senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Stacey Atkinson said outside court after the verdict.
“When she dismissed that, he repeatedly stabbed her in front of horrified onlookers. He left her there to die. He walked away and utilised public transport to facilitate his escape out of Bradford.”
Ms Akter fell to the ground after she was stabbed, in the attack described by Mr Wood as a “cold-blooded, calculated, premeditated murder”.
“As a final act of sheer gratuitous violence, he kicks Kulsuma before moving away, but not before ensuring that he disposed of the knife,” he told the court.
Ms Akter’s stab injuries included ones to her body, neck, and face, he added.
Image: Masum was arrested more than 150 miles away from where the incident took place
Claims he wanted to ‘kill himself in front of her’
Giving evidence through a Bengali interpreter, Masum told the jury he tracked down his wife “still optimistic” he could save his marriage, but if that did not work he thought: “I will just kill myself in front of her.”
He broke down in tears as he claimed he “totally lost control”, later saying that the next thing he could remember was walking along the road with bloodstains on his hand.
Image: Masum walking away after the attack. Pic: West Yorkshire Police/PA
But speaking after the court hearing, West Yorkshire Police’s DCI Atkinson said Masum had “realised the extent of evidence against him” so was trying to lean on “diminished responsibility”.
Describing the nature of the murder, she said it was “really unusual” to see “an event unfold on CCTV as it did”.
“Kulsuma suffered a brutal attack in broad daylight whilst her baby son was in his pram,” she said in a statement.
“Kulsuma’s family have been left absolutely devastated by her death, I hope today’s conviction will bring them a sense of justice in knowing that the man responsible for her death has been found guilty.”
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