But Brown’s statement isn’t entirely helpful for the current prime minister.
Sir Keir Starmer has been under pressure from opposition politicians to order an inquiry in to how Lord Mandelson was appointed as US ambassador in the first place.
In an attempt to get on the front foot today, the prime minister said there would be an urgent investigation into Lord Mandelson’s links with Epstein while he was a minister in the last Labour government.
But it now transpires that Gordon Brown had asked the cabinet secretary to undertake a similar exercise as long ago as last September – although it unearthed nothing.
And that may solidify further the criticism from the opposition – and from some inside the Labour Party – that Sir Keir has been too slow to act.
When Lord Mandelson was turfed out of Washington last September, Downing Street said that was because the “extent and depth” of his relationship with Epstein hadn’t been previously known.
While new depths now appear to have been plumbed, the question of why some more wasn’t known or discovered before his appointment will not go away.
Without approving that appointment, any historical revelations about Lord Mandelson would have been unlikely to have risked political damage to the prime minister directly.
In retrospect, Sir Keir must be wishing the self-declared political fighter had become a quitter many years ago.
