The final tranche of the Mandelson files was released this afternoon – though no thanks to Lord Mandelson. A Cabinet Office note released alongside the 1,500 pages of documents covering Mandelson’s time as our man in Washington said that messages held on his personal phone would not be handed over. As this was not a statutory inquiry, the Cabinet Office concluded it ‘has no further recourse to search the personal devices of Peter Mandelson’.
What they do have, though, are messages between Mandelson and members of the government who have had no choice but to comply. For those hoping for explosions, this particular minesweeper has not – at the time of writing – found much. Much of the document is covered in redaction tipp-ex and there are only two sets of messages between Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney. Eyebrows will be raised that one of the duo had his phone stolen and the other is not cooperating.
The message that stood out to me, though, was between the Work and Pensions Secretary, Pat McFadden, and the disgraced lord. I feel this exchange neatly sums up the dependency quagmire Britain has found itself in:
As to where things go next, expect questions about the cost
Mandy: ‘The PLP, I gather, is in a mutinous state.’
McFadden: ‘Yes. Every meeting I have is “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”. They’re asking the wrong questions.’
Well, thank goodness at least one cabinet minister gets it. That exchange neatly illustrates Labour’s predicament: there are the ministers who understand the fiscal constraints facing the country and the backbenchers who wilfully ignore them. McFadden knows Britain’s dependency problem cannot be solved by pushing the tax burden to breaking point to fund yet more handouts. The trouble is that large parts of his party simply don’t get it.
Elsewhere, Steerpike has been keeping an eye on the main news lines from the files:
- It turns out Westminster types do spend all their time quoting The Thick of It. Amid efforts to give President Trump a ministerial red box, on 26 August Mandelson emailed Morgan McSweeney to complain: ‘The saga goes on. See Olly [Robbins] email. This is like something out of The Thick of It… I have gone tonto on this.’
- A key focus of Mandelson’s tenure in Washington was his attempt to hand the Chagos Islands over to Mauritius. ‘I am getting very worried about Chagos,’ he texted Starmer’s spin doctor Matthew Doyle in January last year. The following month, Jonathan Powell, the National Security Adviser, emailed him to complain about Chagos looming over an upcoming meeting, amid the prospect of more questions being raised ‘by British journalists… we don’t want to be banjaxed there’.
- Mandy accused Wes Streeting of having a ‘midlife crisis’ over Israel.
- Of Starmer, he said the PM ‘lacks verve’ and that No. 10 needed a ‘complete revamp’.
That last point seems to state the obvious somewhat. As to where things go next, expect questions about the cost. The release of the files from the Cabinet Office has somehow cost taxpayers more than £1 million. Perhaps that point will be raised on Wednesday when there will be a Commons debate on the files. But so far at least, there is no smoking gun.
There was, though, confirmation of why your Spectator subscription is worthwhile. Talking about a leak of Hermer’s legal advice on potential British involvement in attacks on Iran, McFadden said: ‘Tim Shipman has the original article in today’s Spectator.’
Mandelson’s reply: ‘Predictable.’
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