The Duran Podcast - Starmer is in zugzwang. Mandelson arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office

Episode Date: February 24, 2026

Starmer is in zugzwang. Mandelson arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office

All right, Alexander, we have another arrest in the UK. This time it is Mandelson. Peter Mandelson. This is a big establishment guy in the UK. And he was arrested on suspicion charges of public documents. And the documents referred to the communication email exchange with regards to $75,000 payment for some sort of information. And Mandelson is disputing this.

Of course, he says that he has not, he doesn't have any recollection of receiving any payments from Epstein. So he was taken into custody, Alexander. He was released. Andrew, the Andrew formerly known as Prince, was taken into custody, questioned. He was released. Not looking good for Stommer. Where are we with all of this?

No, it's not looking good for Stama at all. There's a number of things to say. The case against Mandelson and the case against Andrew in legal terms is identical. What they are being accused of, they haven't yet been charged. What they are being accused of is providing private classified, we're not exactly classified, but confidential information from the government to Jeffrey Epstein. As we know, both men were closely, deeply involved with Jeffrey Epstein. And this information was information that was private, that belonged to the British government.

It was not for them, for either of these two people to release. and the case that's been brought against both of these two men is the same. It's the same charge or the same crime misconduct of public office. Now, I have to say this. There is something very strange about the way this has all gone, this has all happened. And we discussed it the last time we touched on all of this. The case against Mandelson on the facts that we know is, much stronger than the case against Andrew.

Firstly, the case is misconduct of public office. It is not clear what public office Andrew actually held. He was a British trade representative, but apparently that was unpaid. And somebody who encountered him as a British trade representative has told me in a private email. that Andrew did absolutely nothing. He was there purely in a decorative position. I mean, he wasn't actually doing anything important. Also, it turns out that the man who proposed that Andrew should become a UK trade representative was Peter Mandelson. So Peter Mantelson is at the center of this. Peter Mandelson, by contrast, there's no doubt at all that he was a government,

a cabinet minister. He was providing information from the heart of government to Jeffrey Epstein in breach of trust as a cabinet minister and in violation of his oath as a member of the Privy Council. The Privy Council isn't actually, properly speaking, a council. It rarely, very rarely meets as a council. But every cabinet minister is a member, and that comes with an oath of secrecy. They are not supposed to disclose government business. So the case against Mandelson is much stronger. And unlike Andrew, we can definitely see that Mandelson and Mandelson's husband,

husband took bribes, so took money. There's no real doubt about this. So why was Andrew arrested first? Why was he detained first? Why was his property searched first? Now, when we discussed the case of Andrew last week, we said this was very strange and it was very strange that Mandelson was being treated more leniently than Andrew, despite the case against Mandelson being on its face much stronger than the case against Andrew. Well, we suggested that he might have been that Andrew, the focus was on Andrew because he was being set up as a kind of scapegoat and to divert attention from Mandelson. So we said in our last program that that would fail, that it would create more problems for

Stama and for the government. There would be people like us asking why in that case Mandelson had not been arrested. In fact, after we made our program, more and more people across social media started to ask that very question. I understand that the pressure from within Parliament itself started to grow. And the result is that we now have the arrest of Mandelson, who is a much, much more politically important person than Andrew is. Mandelson is close to Stama.

Mandelson was the protege of Stama's former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. It is widely accepted that Mandelson and McSweeney worked together to make Stama leader of the Labour Party and then Prime Minister. And it is also widely accepted that Mandelson, together with McSweeney, were choosing who would be a minister in the government and who would not. And of course, Stama appointed Mandelson, British ambassador to Washington. So the arrest of Mandelson has far bigger political effects than the arrest of Andrew. And if, as I said, the attempt to the arrest of Andrew was intended to draw attention away from Mandelson, that failed and it has failed catastrophically.

So now is it about protecting Stammer's prime ministership now? Is that where we are at the moment? Yes, that is exactly where we are. Except, of course, that Stama has no chief of staff because he hasn't been able to replace McSweeney. He's at odds with many members of his own cabinet, and this is very widely known. He's parliamentary party.

is likes him intensely. And on Thursday, there is an important parliamentary by-election taking place in Manchester, in what used to be a rock-solid Labour constituency. I mean, Labor always won there. Only this time, it's universally expected that Labour will lose and lose back catastrophically, and that either the Greens or Reform are going to win. In which case, of course, there would be a for Stama next week, he will have been shown to have been, again, a massive election loser. So this arrest of Mandelson has come at the very worst moment for him, because just as again we said in recent programs, it looks as if we're going to start getting more and more documents published about what happened between Stama and Mandelson and how Mandelson was appointed

a British ambassador to the US. So all of that information is coming out. Mandelson has now been arrested and we have the first in a succession of elections which Labor under Starma is going to lose very, very badly. And as we've also discussed in a recent program, legal advice has been provided to the government, which they weren't able to push back on, that their attempt to postpone elections or really cancel local elections in May was illegal. So he's looking very, very bad for Stama indeed. He is basically in that, you know, that cartoon character situation. He's run off the cliff and he's still running.

There's absolutely nothing below him. Right. But can you imagine what would have happened if he lost those elections and had not arrested Mandelson? I mean, maybe the point is, is you have to go after Mandelson now. Andrew didn't work. We have to now at least question Mandelson because they haven't been charged with anything, right? No, we haven't been charged. Because at least we have to bring him in. We have to question him. Got to get the media involved. They'll take the videos, the photos. It'll get a lot of publicity. It'll show that you're doing something, Mr. Prime Minister, because if you don't do this and you're going to lose the elections really bad, then you're going to be complete toast. You're done. So maybe they're thinking this is going to buy him some more time after a big election's loss.

At least he can come out and say, at least I'm enforcing the law and I'm going after Andrew and Mandelson. No one's above the law. That's what he's going to say. In my, Britain, no one is above the law, right? That'll be his line after the best. big election losses, but is that going to be enough? And where do we go from here? Do you have to start getting an investigation or charges, an arrest? I mean, where are we in all of this?

Right. Let's start with the last point. We are in the middle of an investigation and it will end in charges. In Mandelson's case, I'm going to be astonished if there were no charges. In Andrew's case, it's not quite so clear cut, but there is an investigation underway and there will be charges. And by the way, just for the record, Stama is saying, his people are saying exactly what he said. However, how you stand, the law is above you,

the law is going to be administered impartially. This is what this great government. This is what this great prime minister do. My own personal view is that Stama is, actually what in chess is called a Zugzwang. Whatever he does, whatever move he makes now, it makes his position worse. Taking no action against Mandelson, allowing Mandelson to continue living in his very elegant house in Regent's Park without having him arrested in the way that he's just been arrested, would have been an absolute disaster. After the election,

defeat on Thursday, it would have resulted in even more questions and people were already asking questions. Arresting Mandelson brings home to more and more people. How bad the situation in the government in the Labour Party actually is. At Tsuk-Zvang, for those who don't know, is a chess situation, a situation in chess, where whatever move you make, your position just goes on getting worse. And that's exactly where Stama is. There is only one thing that is keeping Stama, prime minister at the present time, which is that the Labour Party cannot line up someone to succeed him. That is all. That's incredible. That labor doesn't have anybody? No. No. So how can we just don't go to a general election? Well, good question.

Well, they don't want general election because they know they would lose. So in practice, we have no prime minister because Stama is trying every day to come up with something that will get him through the next day. I mean, that's all. He's living now as prime minister from one day to the next. So Britain has no prime minister able to do anything controversial, anything difficult. He's going to be pushed to follow whatever policy. his parliamentary party wants or whatever, you know, the light gust of political wind in one direction, he's going to have to swing to it. It is no government because ministers in the

government are not paying any attention to him because they know perfectly well that he has no authority to sack him, to sack them. There was some discussion of sacking one of his rivals West Streeting, who by the way, is probably also in no position to challenge Stama at the moment, because he is, despite his own denials, well known to be a friend of Peter Mandelson's, just to say. But there was some thought given apparently to sacking streeting, but Stammer's own officials then told the media that Stammer is too weak a position to sack streeting. So he can't sack ministers. He can't force through decisions.

He doesn't have any authority. So there is no prime minister. Without a prime minister, there is no government. The only thing the British government is able to do and to agree on is to give more support to Zelensky and Ukraine. That is the entire purpose now of the British government. It has no other. Is that what this is all about, the whole demonization of Russia? Is it all about protecting the Epstein class, as Thomas Massey correctly calls them?

That's going to do a lot of damage, labeling them, labeling all these people as the Epstein class, the globalists around the world that govern us, that rule over us. Thomas Massey is calling them the Epstein class? But is that what's going on in the U.K.? Or is that at least a part of what's going on in the UK, the Novachov, the scribbles, the poisoning, the Ecuador dark frogs, the evil Putin, supporting Zelensky, constantly poking the Russian bear, calling for escalation. Is there a part of this, which is just all about keeping the UK public afraid, afraid and occupied as this class of people, you know, do what they're going to do what they're going to do. they're doing? I've been making this point for years. I first wrote about it, I think, in 2018,

which is that the one thing that holds the political class together, that prevents it from disintegrating and preserving a degree of coherence is hostility to Russia. It's the one thing they can all agree about. I mean, otherwise, they disintegrate into their various factions. And it is the one point where they still believe that they have contact with the British people. In other words, on everything else, they failed. So the way to try to retain a degree of support from the British people is by scaring the British people by talking all the time about the great threat from the monstrous dictatorship in the East, which is, of course, Russia. And that's its primary function now to keep the political leadership that we have in Britain,

the political class, the Epstein class, if you like, to keep them where they are. That is its internal logic. You know, Epstein had an exchange of emails. I forgot with who. I want to say someone in the Rothschild family or something. I'm trying to find the email right now, Alexander. But he talked about the opportunity of Ukraine after the coup of Maidan in 2014. Those words, stay with me.

It was. It was, it was, I'm sure, I'm sure I'm remembering the same one. And it was, um, with, um, the, what was I say, Marianna or Mary Doroth Child or something like that. Yeah, I forgot. I'm trying to find it. I'm sure it was, I'm sure she was the, uh, she was the, the receiver of the email. But I, I remember it well and absolutely. Um, I, I would just point out many opportunities is what he said, I think, I believe, yeah, many opportunities post-cru. Exactly. I do need to point out that, you know, the Rothschilds are not so much a family as a clan. I mean, they are present in many, many different countries and there are hundreds of them. This is the French Rothschilds, as I understand it, not the British ones. But remember what we made, the point we made before, that Robert Maxwell, who seems to have had some kind of connection through the daughter, who by the way, way, we now know how her first name is pronounced. It's pronounced Gillen Maxwell.

Epstein's very close friend. Anyway, Robert Maxwell had deep connections with France. Epstein had deep connections with France. He had a home. He had a home there. He owned a whole apartment on the Avenue Fosch, and he had an apartment himself within that apartment building. So, I mean, you know, the apartment building on the Avenue Fosch, which he actually owned, and parts of the apartment, some of the building, he also rented out.

And sometimes, apparently, he gave use of that apartment to friends, to build apartments in that building, to friends of his, you know, friends in inverted commerce. But no, absolutely. I mean, that is, that is, if you like, the inducement in all of this, the temptation. You go to Ukraine, make lots of money there. Ultimately, again, the same people in Britain and in France too, but even more in Britain, made a great deal of money. A lot of them went to Russia in the 90s and made an awful lot of money there as well. And they've always been very, very angry that when Putin came along,

he took those opportunities away from them. And you can see that Epstein in this email was again, appeared to be floating these same possibilities all over again. I was going to say exactly what you said. You beat me to it. Putin is always ruining their game, it seems. Yes. Right? Whether it's the 90s in Russia or whether it's everything that was going on in Ukraine.

Even all the Russia gate stuff. Exactly. You know, Parisma, all that stuff. Putin is always ruining their hustle, their game. Absolutely. That's why you have the hatred. That is why they have the hatred. But the hatred, as you rightly said, also serves a political function.

It keeps the political class united and coherent. It gives it internal logic. And at the same time, it scares or they try to use it to scare people in Britain. And in this, by the way, they are, to a certain extent, success. I mean, you know, this constant hammering away about, you know, the threat from Russia, the wickedness of Putin, the dangers from Russia and all of that. I mean, it is having an effect. It does mean that, you know, there are a lot of people in Britain who have internalized

this and who accept this, and it does affect their outlook. And at the same time, they use this issue to differentiate the political class from those who they say might be soft on Russia, people like Nigel Farage, and even to some extent, the Greens, and of course, Jeremy Corbyn before. Yeah, it's a great distraction for them. You know, look at the evil man over there in Russia, in Moscow. Exactly. And you don't take notice of the evil, you know, right inside.

Yeah. Exactly. All right. I guess we'll be waiting to see if there is going to be charges are the next step then, right? Well, they are the next step. How long does that take, by the way, usually? Right, it can take a long time up to, when sometimes it can take years. Wow.

But in this case, I would have thought that we're talking about weeks, maybe months at most. I can't imagine that in Mandelson's case, there won't be charges. And then you've got a trial. For political reasons, if for no others. And then there's a trial then. So the charges, then you have the trial. Just a final question, do those trials, are those open to the public? Yeah, well, they should be.

Or are they closed and you don't really know what's going on? No, no, they should be open to the public. I mean, the only cases where the public are excluded are sexual cases. sometimes, and also cases involving national security spies and people like that. Wouldn't this fall under those? I think if they try to push that argument, it would be even more controversial. So I don't think they're going to do it. I think they're just going to have to accept that this case is going to go all the way to court

and there will be charges. And the other thing that people need to bear in mind is that there's now going to be enormous anxiety right across the political class about what Mandelson is going to do. Because, of course, he was absolutely at the center of British politics for decades, going all the way back to the mid-1980s. He knows everybody. He knows everybody's secrets. Good point. Good point. So, you know, people will be sweating and worrying about that as well. If I'm going down, I'm going to take all you guys down with me. Exactly. Okay, we'll end the video there at the durand.com. We are on X. We're on Rumble and Telegram. We are also on substack. So check us out on

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