Labour veteran Peter Mandelson is the first political appointment as ambassador to Washington in 50 years. For some months, Lord Mandelson had been going round London suggesting he had no desire to be appointed to the role of Washington ambassador, saying he would rather not become a hotel manager so late in his career.
His feigned lack of interest in shepherding a succession of middle-rank ministers through the British embassy, a 96-year-old recently restored Lutyens building, is typical of the smoke and mirrors that has surrounded his potential appointment. At another point, it was suggested that the appointment of Mandelson was being blocked by the foreign secretary, David Lammy, who feared one of the key roles in his job – guiding the special relationship through a second Trump term – would effectively be snatched from him by the publicity-attracting former minister.
Lammy had already lost responsibility for EU negotiations and had to swallow the appointment of one Blairite, Jonathan Powell, as national security adviser, so tolerating a third reduction to his portfolio might be too much. In the end, if Lammy ever harboured such doubts – and the evidence is thin – he was big enough to see the virtue in the appointment of the first political ambassador to Washington in 50 years.
A celebrity politician, rather than a conventional diplomat, might make Britain’s sometimes lonely voice heard in the cacophony of Washington. There are also self-evident dangers in the appointment. It had been suggested that either Mandelson or David Miliband, the former Labour foreign secretary, would be offered the post if Kamala Harris was appointed, since they were natural ideological soulmates, but a lower-profile professional diplomat would handle relations if Trump triumphed.
