Will Peter Mandelson be the final nail in Labour's coffin? Asks Andrew Marr
Peter Mandelson has stepped down from the House of Lords. Right. Unavoidable. Inevitable.
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The Epstein and Mandelson scandal is being described as the greatest this country has faced since the Profumo affair of 1963.
Like that one, it's about sex and lies and political betrayal.
Like that one, there's a Russian connection.
Like that one, as the scandal developed, the police were brought in.
Today the Cabinet Office and the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown have passed information to Scotland Yard to allow them to carry out a scoping investigation.
And finally, like that one, at the heart of it is the fatal belief by powerful politicians, surrounded by the very rich, that they are invulnerable, beyond ordinary rules for ordinary people.
Until, suddenly, it all comes tumbling down.
Just one other point of comparison for today's ministers to chew over: the Profumo scandal turned public opinion finally against the Macmillan government - the establishment of the day, which fell at the following election.
If Profumo was the final nail in the Tory coffin, might Mandelson be the final nail in Labour's?
The man himself, despite quitting the Lords, quite remarkably, doesn't yet seem to have quite comprehended the scale of the disaster, or his colleagues' sense of betrayal.
In a recent newspaper interview published this very morning, he was still saying that "hiding under a rock" would be a disproportionate response to a handful of misguided historical emails and that he was busy getting his life back into shape.
I'm afraid it reminds me strongly of the Monty Python sketch where the black Knight gets his arms and then his legs hacked off and he's still bouncing around, refusing to give up and threatening to bite King Arthur to death.
For Peter Mandelson today, I think the best and simplest piece of advice is: for goodness sake, go and find yourself a rock.
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Andrew Marr is an author, journalist and presenter for LBC.
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