Earlier this year, we learned that Peter Mandelson had allegedly conspired with a US bank against UK interests. Specifically, he advised JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon to ‘mildly threaten’ then-chancellor Alistair Darling. Now, that same banking boss is once again mildly threatening the UK over plans to raise taxes… unsurprisingly, the Mandelson and his sticky fingers continue to cast a long shadow.
JP Morgan CEO warns UK chancellor not to hike taxes on banks, could raise £19bn.
Says it would lose jobs.
From industry that has closed bank branches, profiteered, taken bailouts, sold dud products, engaged in frauds, facilitated illicit financial flows.https://t.co/PrHcwLUURi
— Prem Sikka (@premnsikka) August 17, 2026
It’s yet another sign that the wealthy can get away with pretty much unlimited bad behaviour.
Mild threats
The Mandelson revelations came to us via the ‘Epstein Files’. As British economics journalist Faisal Islam reported in February:
For a decade and a half, I have wondered about a private conversation I had with the late Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer under Gordon Brown, about the financial crisis.
Darling told me about a painful and angry telephone conversation he had with Jamie Dimon, chief executive of US banking giant JP Morgan, at the end of 2009 when the UK government announced plans to tax bankers’ bonuses.
Some of it had been reported at the time, such as a threat to pull plans for JP Morgan’s massive new headquarters in the UK.
But — to my utter astonishment – details of the background and the context to this call appear to be in the Epstein files released on Friday, and appear to have involved the unlikely combination of Peter Mandelson, Jeffrey Epstein and the suggestion of “mild threats” over the bonus tax.
It was Mandelson who advised Dimon to threaten the chancellor. And we know this because he later blabbed about it to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in an email.
Given this unseemly history, you’d think that Dimon would think twice about giving the appearance of threatening the UK. This would of course require the man to have some shame. And if he had that, he almost certainly wouldn’t still be running the bank more than a decade later.
In hock
Dimon had raised the fact that JP Morgan was one of the biggest purchasers of UK government debt, leaving the clear suggestion in Darling’s mind that America’s biggest bank could effectively stop lending to Britain.
While Darling refused to cave, he did recall that a number of bankers rang him up with what seemed like a script to complain about the bonus tax, urging a U-turn.
It occurred with such regularity that Darling started to tell them what they were about to say before they said it, having heard the words repeatedly.
How long can we continue to permit a system in which wealthy Americans tell us how we run our country? It would be one thing if the system we lived under provided stability and security; as we all now know, though, things are actually in a constant state of deterioration. On that note, Mandelson’s involvement in these ongoing machinations should not be forgotten.
Skipping forward to today, the Guardian has reported:
Jamie Dimon, the boss of the US bank JP Morgan, has urged John Healey not to use his first budget as chancellor to increase taxes on banks’ bumper profits.
Speculation has been growing that a windfall tax could be imposed on UK lenders to fund Andy Burnham’s cost of living agenda, with campaigners estimating such a move could raise £19bn.
Dimon told Healey in a phone conversation that higher levies could hit jobs, citing a fall in finance roles in New York that he blamed on the city’s tax regime.
Oh no, wherever would we be as a society without an excess of greedy bankers? Again, Mandelson’s shadow is never far from these financial narratives.
On and on
We live in a world in which no one ever seems to be punished and no one ever goes away. Peter Mandelson may be out of public life, but his recent sacking was the third time he was ejected from office in disgrace. Dimon, meanwhile, has continued at JP Morgan without pause.
The question now is whether Burnham plans to govern for the bankers or the rest of us. Ultimately, the Mandelson name serves as a reminder of how often elite figures resurface in the corridors of power.
Featured image via the Canary
By Willem Moore
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