Peter Mandelson and Epstein: how much did Starmer know?

For the third time in his political career, Peter Mandelson has fallen from high office in a scandal linked to rich and powerful men - this time it was his relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein that was his undoing. 

Lord Mandelson was sacked from his role as UK ambassador to the US after leaked emails showed him offering support for Epstein even after a sex offence conviction. 

Downing Street said the Prime Minister found 'the depth and extent of the relationship reprehensible.' 

But questions are now being asked about Keir Starmer's judgement in appointing him in the first place given Lord Mandelson has attracted - some would say courted - controversy throughout his career. 

He was widely considered to be doing a good job in Washington though, with a good rapport with President Trump. Is that relationship now damaged? 

On the latest episode of the Fourcast, Cathay Newman was joined by the Labour peer Ayesha Hazarika, the author and political journalist Ian Dunt who has written extensively on Lord Mandelson and the film-maker Richard Sanders who produced the Dispatches documentary that first revealed the friendship between the two men.