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Lord Mandelson resigned his membership of the Labour party and then retired from the House of Lords; some of the three million items released by the US Department of Justice relating to the late Jeffrey Epstein suggested that, while serving as business secretary in Gordon Brown’s cabinet, he sent market-sensitive government information to Epstein. The Metropolitan Police launched a criminal investigation into allegations of misconduct in public office by Lord Mandelson. Mr Brown sent the Met ‘relevant’ information for their investigations. In an exchange with Lord Mandelson two days before Mr Brown’s resignation as PM, Epstein emailed: ‘Bye, bye smelly?’ The Conservatives questioned in parliament the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson ambassador to Washington. Documents also suggested that Epstein paid Lord Mandelson £55,000 in 2003 and 2004; he said he has no recollection of this. Pictures from the files showed him wandering about in his underpants. An email from 2009 indicated that Epstein sent £10,000 to Peter Mandelson’s partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva, who had set out the costs of an osteopathy course. Three photographs showed a clothed Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on all fours over a clothed woman lying on the floor. Mr Mountbatten-Windsor moved out of Royal Lodge, Windsor.
Sir Keir Starmer returned from his visit to Xi Jinping, the ruler of China, who halved tariffs on Scotch whisky from 10 to 5 per cent. On the way back, Sir Keir dropped in on the Prime Minister of Japan and invited her to visit Britain (if she wins this week’s general election). The Russian captain of a cargo ship that collided with a tanker in the North Sea, leaving a crewman missing, was found guilty at the Old Bailey of gross negligence manslaughter.
One million people missed the 31 January deadline to file their tax returns and faced penalties. Resident doctors in England voted to give their union, the British Medical Association, another six-month mandate to hold strikes. Lord Triesman, the Labour politician who relinquished the whip for a year under Jeremy Corbyn, died aged 82. The journalist Allan Massie died aged 87. Merthyr Tydfil Council said it sourced 99 per cent of chicken in school meals from China and Thailand.
Abroad
President Donald Trump of the United States said: ‘A massive Armada is heading to Iran.’ The American aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln arrived from the South China Sea. ‘The Americans should know that if they start a war, this time it will be a regional war,’ said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. An Iranian drone was shot down as it approached the Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea. Mr Trump said that Russia had agreed to stop the long-distance bombardment of Ukrainian cities for a week. But, after that, Russia used a record number of ballistic missiles and drones to target Ukraine’s energy sector, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. More than 1,000 tower blocks in Kyiv were left without heating again in temperatures of -20°C. A drone killed 12 miners in a bus in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Elon Musk’s efforts to stop Russia using Starlink satellites for drone attacks have ‘delivered real results’, Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukrainian defence minister, said.
The US Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged as Jerome Powell, its chair, defended the importance of central bank independence. Mr Trump named Kevin Warsh to succeed him in May. In less than a week, gold fell from $5,600 to $4,400 an ounce, before rallying. The price of Bitcoin dropped to $77,000, having reached almost $125,000 last October. A Greek coastguard vessel and a boat carrying migrants collided in the Aegean, killing at least 15 people. Sick and wounded Palestinians from Gaza arrived in Egypt after the Rafah border crossing reopened for the movement of people. Israel estimated that 70,000 people had been killed in its war on Gaza; the figure from the Gaza health ministry, run by Hamas, was 71,667. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, 53, the son of Libya’s former ruler, was reported to have been shot dead.
Marius Borg Hoiby, 29, the son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit, was arrested on suspicion of assault, days before he went on trial in Oslo on 38 charges, including four counts of rape. China executed four members of the Bai family mafia, which ran scam centres in the Burmese border town of Laukkaing and entrapped Chinese victims. China banned hidden door handles on electric cars. CSH
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