Moonwatcher

Restore Britain would legalise pepper spray.

The casualness with which Peter Mandelson as business secretary forwarded confidential and price sensitive government information to the late paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein is jaw dropping. In two of the instances we know about, these were analyses written for the then prime minister, Gordon Brown, by two of his most trusted advisers, Nick Butler - who worked in 10 Downing Street - and Shriti Vadera, who held multiple ministerial roles. Both were assessing for the PM in 2009 what action the government and Bank of England needed to make to curb the continuing economic damage from the global financial crisis. Their assessments and recommendations would have been highly valuable to any bank or credit institution. Butler, for example, in 2009 was recommending government “asset sales of even £20bn” to “relieve the debt burden, reduce borrowing costs and provide some funds for new investment”. Against a backdrop where the PM and chancellor Alistair Darling were under pressure to pre-empt the austerity that would later be adopted by Osborne and Cameron, this was significant. Butler also said such a commitment to privatisations would prevent Labour going into the coming election threatening tax rises. He then revealed to the PM that: “This is important because there are still some companies - mostly in the financial area but also highly mobile companies such as [the pharmaceutical giant] GSK which are investigating the possibility and costs of moving out of the UK. Tax for them is the critical issue.” Butler today told me: “I am wondering what else was sent on [by Mandelson] from me or from anyone else in or around No 10. Peter was copied in on anything of relevance to business…There was an internal culture of trust and confidentiality even when people disagreed. Peter broke that. “[His forwarding of emails] is a complete betrayal of trust. I agree with Gordon Brown that there must be a full enquiry into all messages sent to Epstein in this period. This can’t be the only one. Peter should do the honourable thing and resign from the Lords”. As for the email written by Vadera to “John Pond” in August 2009 (which I understand was her pseudonym for Brown) -  also forwarded to Epstein by Mandelson - it is an extraordinary insight into important disputes between the Treasury, the Bank of England and business department, about whether banks were providing adequate credit to medium size and big businesses. Written in capital letters to help the PM, whose eyesight was poor, it says of the then governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King: “MERVYN KING IS OFF THE PAGE. HE IS WINDING PEOPLE UP ABOUT BANKS NOT LENDING WITH NO EVIDENCE AND HAS BEEN DESTABILISING THE SYSTEM BY TALKING ABOUT BANKS NEEDING MORE CAPITAL.” It also says of the Chancellor Alistair Darling, “AD INSTRUCTED PAUL [MYNERS] TO THREATEN BANKS WITH OFT INVESTIGATION. THIS IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE, NOT JUST BECAUSE IT DESTABILISES THE LLOYDS MERGER WHICH THE OFT ARE DYING TO UNPICK. BUT BECAUSE WE ARE ACTUALLY ASKING BANKS TO INCREASE THEIR MARKET SHARE BY LENDING MORE TO MAKE UP FOR SMALL AND FOREIGN BANKS. AND THEN WE THREATEN THEM WITH OFT [INVESTIFATION] WHICH WILL INVESTIGATE THEIR MARKET SHARE. IT WAS BEYOND SILLY.” It is astonishing that such sharp divisions at the heart of government were shared with Epstein, whose business was to a large extent built on trading such confidential information with Wall Street institutions as well as trafficking and abusing children. Mandelson did not respond to requests to comment.