There is a reason why it is now open season on Peter Mandelson. Because the billionaires – and their media – would rather you were directing your hate at their arch-creature than at them directly. The “one bad apple” theory – or two, if you count Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor – helpfully redirects our attention away from who and what was being served. The focus is on Mandelson’s personal relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. But his network of business ties extended well beyond one sexual predator. Until this month, when he was forced to divest under intense scrutiny following the release of the Epstein Files, Mandelson was the founder and senior partner in the lobbying firm Global Counsel. Its clients are some of the most powerful corporations on the planet. Several are now bailing out to avoid association with Mandelson. But existing or recently departed clients include tech behemoths such as Palantir, TikTok and OpenAI; fossil fuel firms such as Shell, Anglo American and Glencore; financial services such as JP Morgan, Standard Chartered, Barclays and Bank of America; and consumer firms such as Nestle, Shein, BMW and the English Premier League. It is not that these companies have done anything illegal in being represented by Global Counsel, or that Global Counsel itself does anything illegal. It is that the largely unseen interface between the world of politics and the most powerful companies in human history has shaped what is considered lawful. The murkiness of this system is its very point. In 2010, Mandelson told Epstein that Global Counsel, which he was then establishing, would provide “advisers on the politics of deals you want brokered and issues you want resolved or regulatory changes needed for your commercial protection/success”. At least now, under pressure, our captured political class is starting to ask very limited questions about what has really been going on. For example, how did Mandelson’s client, Palantir, win a £241 million ($329m) contract with the UK Ministry of Defence without an open tender? And why was an official meeting in Washington DC, between Mandelson, Starmer and Palantir’s chief executive, Alex Karp, not minuted? Another Global Counsel client, OpenAI, which recently signed an agreement with the UK to explore integrating its AI into justice, security and education systems, recently appointed George Osborne, a former British chancellor, as its lead representative. He will be responsible for working with governments worldwide on their artificial intelligence policy. It is impossible to imagine that former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn would have willingly networked into this world of corporate control – now the minimum entry requirement for any politician aspiring to a role in government. Which is why not only the billionaires and their media, but the Labour Party’s bureaucracy too, worked tirelessly on Corbyn’s character assassination for five years. Read more from latest article Starmer is toast. But the dark forces that brought him to power are as strong as ever here: middleeasteye.net/opinion/st…