MANDELSON THE VICTIM - I THINK NOT
If Mandelson were an ordinary person, Mr Cardigan, working as a white slave for some oligarch or corporation he could make the case of victimhood, that he has been conned by a master manipulator in the form of Jeffrey Epstein, but Mandelson was not a poor white slave. Mandelson was a high-flying British elite educated in fancy schools who held important government positions. Epstein was a psychopath, obvious to anyone with half a brain. Epstein was a master manipulator, a classic Snake in a Suit, a psychopath who would have rated well over thirty on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. That Mandelson couldn't work this out makes him a careless, incompetent fool. A victim of his own making.
One of the key skills in executing high office is to evaluate the bona fides of all people you deal with. You need to know who they are, where they come from, how they got there and what they want. If such people start becoming familiar and seeming to be on your "wavelength" and very cooperative, the alarm bells should start ringing. If Mandelson couldn't tell the difference between genuine people and a psychopath like Epstein he deserves everything he gets. One of the strategies that senior people in ministerial and other high offices require is to never talk to any person alone. Always have at least one or two people present who never agree with you, acting as BS detectors and scribes who will check what is said with the truth. This is the public duty of all high office holders, especially those in government.
No Mandelson must be pilloried, drawn and quartered and burnt at the stake by the British press, not given psychotherapy sessions with boxes of tissues laid on.
And Starmer should be on the other side of the stake. He may well have been the worlds most boring man, but giving jobs to people who fraternise with paedophiles is about as un-boring as it gets.
Victim my arse.
