He won’t be smiling much anymore.

Peter Mandelson is no stranger to scandal-induced resignations: He resigned from Blair’s cabinet twice in the space of three years and lately he resigned as Britain’s Ambassador to the United States after a tenure of just seven months. He was dismissed from the ceremonial office of High Sheriff of Hull at the same time.

Today he announced his intention to retire from the House of Lords, having already taken leave of absence on Saturday. He additionally resigned from the Labour Party on Sunday, meaning he briefly had the designation of non-affiliated peer.

His departure from the upper house will not make much practical difference as he had long ceased to be a regular contributor to proceedings — he spoke in the House just five times in the past five years and thirteen times in the five years before that. In a break from normal procedure, the Lord Speaker announced Mandelson’s gave advanced notice of his retirement, “given the public interest”. This, incidentally, was the first retirement announcement of Michael Forsyth’s speakership, which only began yesterday. On the woolsack he must obviously remain studiously neutral in such matters, but I can’t help wondering what his personal feelings are, given that he lost his seat in the House of Commons in the 1997 New Labour landslide in which Mandelson played such an important role.

The retirement is obviously a case of jumping before he was pushed, as many of his political enemies (always a sizeable group, now an enormous one) had been threatening that if he did not leave of his own accord then they would take measures to force him out.

The House of Lords Reform Act 2014 (by which he retired) allows peers to be expelled if sentenced to prison terms of at least one year while the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015 allows the House to evict members who breach the code of conduct, but the necessary investigations — both by Parliament itself and by the Metropolitan Police — would have taken too long to satisfy the public’s bloodlust. In any case the former act only applies to convictions for crimes committed after its own commencement, whereas most of Mandelson’s alleged offences are from well before.

Even after this announcement, there are still some calling for him to lose his title. As with the former Prince Andrew (and for many of the same reasons), this could most quickly achieved by him writing to the Lord Chancellor to request his name by omitted from the Roll of the Peerage. This may not satisfy his opponents, some of whom are explicitly calling for an Act of Parliament to formally revoke the letters patent of 2008 by which his peerage was created. Perhaps the old-fashioned Bill of Attainder will come back into fashion after all.

UPDATE (4th February)

Mandelson’s retirement was announced properly today. I note that the words “On behalf of the House, I should like to thank the noble Lord for his valued service to the House.” which normally accompany such announcements were omitted on this occasion.

It was also reported today that the Prime Minister wishes to remove him from the Privy Council. It appears he came to this decision just after yesterday’s meeting as nothing to that effect is listed in the agenda or the minutes. Either the enactment of Mandelson’s expulsion will wait until next month’s meeting or a special session will shortly be convened for this purpose.