BBC Laura Kuenssberg viewers switch off as show | UK News

BBC politics programme Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg sparked a big backlash after the host launched Lord Mandelson onto the show. The former UK’s ambassador to the US addressed his hyperlinks to the late convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein in his first sit down interview. He said persevering with his friendship with the financier was “a most terrible mistake”.

Laura started: “Lord Mandelson has been one of the most influential figures in Labour for decades. But his tenure as ambassador to the Trump White House came to a crashing end when embarrassing emails between him and his friend convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein emerged.

His relationship had not been a secret but Downing Street booted him out when the messages emerged.”

She continued: “He kept his counsel about what happened until now but he has returned to the fray this week to discuss how the UK and their allies should respond to Trump’s unorthodox diplomacy.”

BBC viewers had been left seething as they took to social media in their droves during Laura’s interview with Lord Mandelson.

An X consumer fumed: “How on earth do you think it is reasonable to give this man airtime @bbclaurak ? Just how low will @bbc sink?.”

Another echoed: “Why the f*** are the BBC giving him ANY airtime?”

“#bbclaurak Only the BBC would ask this [his] opinion on anything,” a third penned.

A fourth added: “Why on Earth is Peter Mandelson on #bbclaurak saying Trump is to be admired when his judgment about Epstein was so, so wrong? Some people should be given no airtime at all. He is one.”

When requested about his relationship with convicted intercourse offender Epstein, and why he stayed buddies with him after his conviction, Mandelson says, “It was a most terrible mistake on my part.”

He went on: “I believed the story he told in 2008 in his first indictment in Florida. I accepted his story and I wish I hadn’t. I gave my support to somebody because I believed what he was telling me and it was misplaced loyalty.”

But he provides: “The crux of this is not me… The crux of this is that so many hundreds of young women were completely trapped, powerless in a system that did not listen to what they had to say.”

Mandelson said he understood why Keir Starmer sacked him but added he had no curiosity in addressing the issue and is “moving on” from it.