Downing Street said the emails contained "new information" that was not known at the time of Lord Mandelson's appointment.

Labour peer Peter Mandelson, the “best pal” of the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, who stood by his friend after his conviction for soliciting sex from children as young as 14, has been sacked ...

In June 2008, Mandelson wrote to Epstein, "I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened. I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain."