How Not to Make An Embarrassing Appointment: Eight Lessons from the Mandelson Affair

Finito World

The publication of the Mandelson papers has revealed something that is rarely visible to the public: what powerful people say when they think nobody is listening.

The documents show Peter Mandelson describing Keir Starmer as lacking “verve”, portraying No. 10 as “beleaguered and bereft”, suggesting that senior figures did not know what the Prime Minister wanted, criticising ministers, and complaining that government did not do policy particularly well. Some of these criticisms may even have been justified. That is not really the point.

The real question is why so many warning signs failed to trigger greater caution before one of Britain’s most important diplomatic appointments.

This is not primarily a story about Peter Mandelson. It is a story about institutional failure. More specifically, it is a story about what happens when organisations become dazzled by talent, experience and status.

History is littered with examples.

President Kennedy’s appointment of General Maxwell Taylor after the Bay of Pigs helped create an inner circle prone to groupthink. Tony Blair’s decision to elevate Alastair Campbell far beyond a traditional communications role blurred the boundaries between politics and government. Donald Trump’s revolving door of cabinet appointments frequently produced the impression that personal loyalty mattered more than institutional fit. Richard Nixon’s appointment of loyalists during Watergate proved disastrous because dissenting voices had been systematically excluded.

Different people. Different countries. Different eras.

The pattern, however, is remarkably similar.

Psychologist Irving Janis, who coined the term “groupthink”, argued that intelligent groups often make poor decisions not because they lack information but because they become excessively confident in their own judgment. The greater the prestige of the individuals involved, the more dangerous the tendency becomes.

The Mandelson affair offers a useful guide to how institutions might avoid repeating the same mistakes.

Step One: Define The Risks Before The Candidate

Most organisations begin appointments by asking the wrong question.

They ask: “Who would be impressive?”

They should ask: “What could go wrong?”

An ambassador is not merely a diplomat. He is a custodian of relationships, secrets, intelligence, reputation and national trust. Before any names enter the discussion, decision-makers should establish what risks the office carries and what standards are required.

Had that discipline been rigorously applied, many of the questions now being asked about the appointment would have arisen much earlier.

Step Two: Distinguish Talent From Suitability

One of the most dangerous assumptions in public life is that ability automatically equals suitability. It does not. A candidate may be brilliant, experienced, connected and charismatic. None of those qualities answer the central question: will the institution become stronger or weaker as a result of the appointment?

Mandelson’s defenders point to his political intelligence, diplomatic skill and international contacts. His critics point to controversies that have followed him for decades. The mistake institutions make is assuming they must choose between these observations. In reality both can be true simultaneously.

The issue is not whether somebody is talented. The issue is whether the risks attached to them are proportionate to the office they are being asked to occupy.

Step Three: Take Reputation Seriously

Modern elites often dismiss reputational concerns as superficial. This is a mistake. Trust is one of the most valuable assets any institution possesses.

The late management thinker Peter Drucker observed that culture eats strategy for breakfast. The same could be said of trust. A brilliant strategy cannot compensate for a collapse in public confidence. The Epstein revelations that ultimately engulfed Mandelson may not have been new information. Yet the fact that they continued to generate public concern should itself have been treated as relevant.

A useful test is simple: if a concern has not disappeared after ten years, it probably matters.

Step Four: Complete Vetting Before Commitment

One striking feature of many appointment disasters is that organisations become emotionally committed to candidates before investigations are complete. At that point evidence is no longer being gathered objectively.

Instead, it is being assessed through the lens of a decision that people have already made. The psychologist Daniel Kahneman called this confirmation bias: our tendency to seek evidence supporting conclusions we have already reached. Once a government decides it wants a particular individual, every warning sign starts looking like an inconvenience rather than a warning.

That is precisely why vetting exists.

Step Five: Create A Devil’s Advocate

One of the most fascinating findings in organisational psychology is that groups make dramatically better decisions when somebody is formally assigned the role of dissenter. Not an enemy. Not a saboteur. Simply somebody whose job is to ask uncomfortable questions.

What if the newspapers discover this? What if new information emerges? What if the candidate’s strengths become liabilities? What if we are wrong?

The Roman Catholic Church institutionalised this principle for centuries through the role of the “Devil’s Advocate” during canonisation proceedings. Modern governments could learn from it.

Step Six: Conduct The Front Page Test

Imagine every relevant fact about the candidate appearing tomorrow on the front page of a newspaper.

Would you still proceed? Not because you hope the story disappears. Not because you believe journalists are unfair. But because you genuinely believe the appointment serves the institution’s interests.

If the answer is uncertain, pause. The public often sees risks that insiders overlook precisely because outsiders are not emotionally invested in the decision.

Step Seven: Establish Genuine Red Lines

Many organisations claim to have standards. Far fewer have standards that actually bind them.

There should be certain factors that trigger automatic reconsideration: failed vetting, significant undisclosed conflicts, misleading information, unresolved ethical concerns, or associations likely to undermine public confidence in the office. The entire purpose of a red line is that it cannot be crossed simply because the candidate is influential.

If exceptions are always available, the standards are meaningless.

Step Eight: Remember What Institutions Are For

The deepest lesson of the Mandelson affair may be the simplest. Institutions exist to protect principles, not personalities.

Yet elite organisations repeatedly fall in love with exceptional individuals and convince themselves that ordinary safeguards need not apply. Psychologist Philip Tetlock, whose work on expert judgment transformed political forecasting, observed that confidence and accuracy are often very different things. The people who sound most certain are not necessarily those who are most correct.

That insight feels particularly relevant here. The Mandelson papers reveal a world of highly intelligent, highly experienced people speaking with great confidence about politics, government and leadership. Yet they also reveal a system that seems remarkably poor at recognising obvious risks before they become public scandals.

The lesson is not that institutions should stop appointing talented people. It is that they should stop believing talent exempts people from scrutiny. The purpose of vetting is not to discover saints. It is to prevent surprises. And almost every embarrassing appointment in history begins with precisely the same sentence: “Yes, but he’s different.”