Police raid Peter Mandelson’s homes in north London and in Wiltshire as part of their investigation into claims he leaked sensitive information to Jeffrey Epstein

Police have raided Peter Mandelson’s homes in London and Wiltshire as they investigate him for misconduct in public office.

Scotland Yard has mounted a full criminal investigation into the Labour grandee after damning revelations about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

While he was a Cabinet minister, the former spin doctor repeatedly leaked him confidential government plans, emails suggest.

Two people believed to be police officers arrived outside Lord Mandelson’s house near Regent’s Park in central London this afternoon.

They knocked on the door and entered the house, with one of them wearing what appeared to be a small body camera.   

Three more people believed to be police officers arrived at the address shortly after. 

The officers were seen collecting items from their car, including a blue box and a large bag, before re-entering the property. 

One man left Lord Mandelson’s house and got into a car. He declined to comment, including on anything happening inside the property.

Met Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hayley Sewart said: ‘I can confirm that officers from the Met’s Central Specialist Crime team are in the process of carrying out search warrants at two addresses, one in the Wiltshire area, and another in the Camden area.

‘The searches are related to an ongoing investigation into misconduct in public office offences, involving a 72-year-old man. He has not been arrested and enquiries are ongoing.’

The offence of misconduct in public office carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. 

In other developments today:

• Global Counsel, the lobbying firm co-founded by Lord Mandelson, has cut all ties with the disgraced peer;
• Dozens of MPs – including 22 from Labour – backed a call for a full public inquiry into links between Epstein and figures in the British establishment;
• The Tories published a dossier of ‘extensive evidence’ of information about Lord Mandelson’s links to Epstein, all of which was available to Sir Keir before he appointed him as US ambassador;
• Rattled Starmer allies claimed Angela Rayner seizing the Labour leadership ‘would trigger an election’;

The criminal investigation was announced on Tuesday after the Government and former prime minister Gordon Brown passed information to the Met. 

It came as the Daily Mail uncovered further sensational details about Lord Mandelson’s dealings with Epstein, with whom he remained close even after the financier had been jailed for child sex offences.

One bombshell email seemingly showed the pair discussing confidential negotiations over a £10billionnistry of Defence contract while Lord Mandelson was business secretary in Mr Brown’s government.

In another exchange, on the day Epstein was released from prison, the pair appeared to joke about celebrating with ‘two strippers’ – with Lord Mandelson branding his paedophile friend a ‘naughty boy’ for making the suggestion.

Lord Mandelson has previously suggested his status as a gay man meant he was ‘kept separate from what (Epstein) was doing in the sexual side of his life’.

Among the three million pages of so-called Epstein Files released by the US Department of Justice are bank statements that suggest Lord Mandelson and his husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, received payments from Epstein totalling tens of thousands of pounds.

Labour’s ‘Dark Lord’ is named as the recipient of three $25,000 (£21,500) payments, which he denies getting, while Mr da Silva was the subject of a standing order that paid out $4,000 (£2,900) a month for three months.

On Tuesday, the disgraced peer finally bowed to public pressure and resigned his seat in the House of Lords.

The Labour grandee, who has always denied wrongdoing, is now likely to be interviewed by officers over claims that his dealings with Epstein broke the law.

Cabinet ministers David Lammy and Pat McFadden, who served as junior ministers in his department, could also be asked to provide evidence, as could Mr Brown.

Confirmation of a police probe came just hours after Downing Street revealed that the Cabinet Office had sent its own dossier to detectives highlighting the ‘market-sensitive’ nature of the material apparently passed by Lord Mandelson to Epstein at the height of the financial crisis.

No 10 said Sir Keir Starmer was ‘appalled’ by the revelations. He told a meeting of his Cabinet that Lord Mandelson had ‘let his country down’.

But Kemi Badenoch said Sir Keir and his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, had ‘a lot of questions to answer’ about why they appointed Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United States despite knowing he had maintained his friendship with the notorious paedophile.

The Tory leader branded the scandal a ‘national embarrassment’. She said the police inquiry was ‘inevitable’ given the seriousness of the allegations, but said people ‘should not let this distract us from the fact that the Prime Minister has his fingerprints all over this’. 

She added: ‘I think the Prime Minister himself needs to come clean and tell us what he knew and when, and be honest about how this ever happened in the first place.’

The under-fire Prime Minister is battling to stay in Downing Street as he reels from the Lord Mandelson scandal, with a number of backbenchers openly questioning his future.

In a bid to contain the crisis, Sir Keir has promised to release documents related to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador in February last year.

But the Government was forced into ceding control of the release of material to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), which will now decide what is made public.

Sir Keir was compelled to make the U-turn on Wednesday following a House of Commons revolt by Labour backbenchers, which was headed by Angela Rayner, the former deputy PM.

The Daily Mail understands that in the wake of Wednesday’s drama, Ms Rayner told an MP ‘I will be ready’ to launch a leadership challenge, despite an ongoing probe into her tax affairs.

It has also been suggested Labour’s ‘women in grey suits’ could be sent to tell Sir Keir that his time is up.

But, in a scramble to ward off a coup, Sir Keir’s allies are insisting that any new PM – such as Ms Rayner – would not have a personal mandate from the electorate and therefore should call a general election. 

One Labour figure who has served on Sir Keir’s front bench told The Telegraph: ‘Presumably Angela Rayner, if she got elected, would have a completely different agenda. 

‘If you come in with a completely different agenda then the country legitimately says, ‘We didn’t vote for this’.

‘And so what are the grounds for refusing a general election? You can claim constitutional grounds, but in the world of frenzied media, of TikTok, YouTube and GB News, is it really sustainable? It doesn’t feel sustainable to me.’

Speaking about the prospect of a leadership switch, a Cabinet minister supportive of Sir Keir added: ‘The pressure for an election would be enormous.’

It comes amid fears in Government that the release of Lord Mandelson’s emails and messages from his time as US ambassador could lay waste to Sir Keir’s attempts to stay close to Donald Trump.

Officials fear that material published as part of a probe into how Lord Mandelson was hired by the PM could include ‘damaging’ comments made by the former diplomat about the notoriously thin-skinned US President.

One official told Politico that ‘there is lots which could be damaging’, adding that the disgraced former minister and diplomat ‘used to download his thoughts in real time’.

The Epstein files have shown Lord Mandelson sharing lewd and off-the-cuff messages with the late child abuser, including joking about ‘well-hung young men’ when he was a Cabinet minister.

The PM on Thursday said he was ‘sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies’ and for having appointed him as US ambassador in February 2025.

But Labour grandee Baroness Harriet Harman said it looked ‘weak and naive and gullible’ for Sir Keir to say ‘he lied to me’ and warned the Mandelson scandal would ‘finish him off’ unless he took the right course of action. 

‘He should be reflecting on why he made that appointment,’ she told Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast.

‘He should also be thinking about a real reset in No10, because what you need from your team in No10 is people who share your values and your principles and who will help you be the best prime minister you can be according to your true self.

‘And clearly that is not what happened because the Keir Starmer who was DPP (director of public prosecutions), would never have appointed somebody like Peter Mandelson to represent the country.’

Leadership speculation intensified on Thursday as the PM gave a speech apologising to Epstein’s victims for believing the peer’s ‘lies’ about his relationship with the paedophile financier.

Backbenchers have called for either Mr McSweeney to be sacked or for Sir Keir himself to step down after bombshell revelations about Lord Mandelson’s dealings with the child sex offender.

However, immigration minister Mike Tapp on Friday defended the under-pressure aide in a round of media interviews.

The so-called ‘special relationship’ between the UK and US is already under strain, despite Sir Keir’s best efforts to maintain it.

Trump has levied tariffs on UK-made imports, embarked on a major row with America’s Nato allies and even disparaged British troops who fought and died in Afghanistan. 

The release could be delayed because the Metropolitan Police has asked the Government not to publish documents that would ‘undermine’ its probe into allegations of misconduct in public office.

And the ISC said it could not provide a timetable for releasing the documents as it reviews whether some of the papers should be withheld for national security reasons. 

At an emergency press conference in Hastings the rattled-looking PM said he was ‘utterly disgusted’ by revelations about Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein and ‘sorry’ he had appointed him as ambassador to Washington DC. 

But he insisted that he would ‘go on’, despite mounting Labour fury over the fiasco. And Downing Street rejected calls from Labour MPs to sack Mr McSweeney, who championed Mandelson’s appointment.