Politics latest: ‘This is the end’ – Trevor Phillips delivers message to ‘friend’ Mandelson after Epstein files revelations

Speaking at the start of his show, Trevor Phillips has sent a direct message to Peter Mandelson.

As Trevor says, he first met Mandelson almost 50 years ago, and the pair have worked together extensively and are friends.

“It’s a friend’s privilege to tell you that you are ill-suited to a role, even that you are a complete idiot,” Trevor says – and that Mandelson told him just that about his attempts to be an elected politician.

Trevor goes on: “I have not spoken personally to Lord Mandelson about the release this weekend of documents, messages, photographs and videos related to the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

“He was invited to join us this morning but declined.

“However, he has told this programme that neither he nor his husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, has any record or recollection of receiving payments in 2003 or 2004, or knows whether the documentation is authentic.

“He does accept that Reinaldo received a loan of $10,000 from Epstein whilst he, Mandelson, was a senior cabinet minister, and he acknowledges that in the same period, Epstein was amongst those who lobbied him on important policy matters.

“There’s no suggestion that Lord Mandelson has done anything unlawful.

“But I would claim the friend’s privilege to tell Peter that he has been, at best naive and foolish, at worst greedy and duplicitous.

“Whatever is true as far as politics and public office are concerned, for Peter Mandelson, this is the end.”

Trevor finishes: “The question now is whether the price of his misjudgement is to be paid only by the man himself, or whether those who trusted him and elevated him to the peerage, and to one of the highest diplomatic posts available, should also share in his ignominy.”