Peter Mandelson *** Red Dispatch Box *** Please contact *** and ask her to talk to *** about *** . It is ridiculous that *** cannot do *** in time for the *** . In the meantime, please also get *** to vote for me as Oxford Chancellor. It’s the least I deserve. My bank account details are *** . Feel free to send to ***. Probably best to discreetly delete all correspondence on these matters. This message will self-destruct in *** seconds.
Thousands of documents released. Many of them rendered almost meaningless with redactions. Almost poetic the level of chaos that has always followed Mandy wherever he goes. The man who believed he was entitled to get away with almost anything.
There was even a handwritten note to David Lammy, the then foreign secretary, in which the Prince of Darkness promises: “You won’t regret appointing me.” That enough should have been a warning to Starmer not to send Mandelson to Washington. The only certainty with Peter is that everyone comes to regret giving him anything. Usually sooner than later.
Hell, there were enough warnings. If you weren’t put off by him twice being sacked from government, his close associations with Jeffrey Epstein and allegedly leaking inside information to a US bank, surely the emails begging for ministers to vote for him to become Oxford chancellor – he was convinced William Hague’s campaign was being run by Tory HQ – and the requests to delay taking up the role of ambassador so he could clean up in China with a public-speaking gig should have raised a few red flags. But apparently not.
It was only at 2pm that the documents were published – there was no reason they couldn’t have been released first thing in the morning – so there wasn’t much time for MPs to scrutinise them before Darren Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister, was due to give a statement to the Commons 90 minutes later. But more than enough to get a feel of Mandelson’s corrosive power. No one comes out of an exchange with Mandy looking good. As with Lady Macbeth, they can never wash the blood off their hands.
Betrayal is Mandelson’s life-blood. It’s there in his treatment of Wes Streeting. Poor trusting Wes. A man more used to stabbing others in the back. Wes looked up to Mandy. Treated him as a mentor. How did Peter repay him? By bitching about him being “pathetic” and going through an “early mid-life crisis”. Then there’s Pat McFadden. Peter encourages Pat to confide in him. Gets him to say the government is directionless. That Keir is weak. That Labour MPs just go on about what taxes to raise so they can give welfare payments to others. Pat’s reward? To be dismissed in an email to Patrick Vallance as an insignificant lightweight.
Nor is Keir Starmer spared. There’s no sense of gratitude for the prime minister having taken a punt on him for the Washington job. For Peter that was no more than he had rightly deserved. The culmination of a lifetime’s brown-nosing the rich, the corrupt and the powerful. So Mandelson happily trash talks Keir to anyone willing to listen. “Rubbish in, rubbish out”. He doesn’t even bother to conceal what he’s doing. He’s never happier than when he’s promoting discontent and division. Turns out he hates Labour every bit as much as the Tories do. There again, so it seems do half the cabinet.
And what does Mandy get in return for his disloyalty? Just about everything he’s always wanted. Not least the sycophancy. New pensions minister Torsten Bell can’t contain his fan-boy excitement. Can hardly believe he has been admitted as one of Mandelson’s courtiers. “You’re amazing,” he simpers. It’s all he can do not to ask for a signed photograph. And as always with Peter there is the deception. Asked to list any current people of interest with whom he has associated, he declines to list Epstein. Because technically speaking Epstein is not current. He is dead.
Most of these questions, though, would have to wait for Wednesday’s general debate on the humble address because MPs had not had the time to scrutinise the files. So Jones kept his statement fairly general. He began by saying this was a triumph of transparency. The government had nothing to hide. Conveniently overlooking the fact that it was entirely thanks to the queasiness of Labour backbenchers over the Mandelson appointment that the humble address had passed. The Tories might want to take the credit but their motion would have been dead in the water but for Labour MPs.
For much of the rest of his time at the dispatch box, Jones restricted himself to process. Putting himself forward as a human guide as to how to interpret the documents. The redactions had been done in conjunction with the intelligence and security committee. The Metropolitan police had wanted some files withheld. And some messages had just disappeared. So sad. It turned out that some ministers, himself included, had deleted all their WhatsApps. Just one of those things. He was so, so sorry. And, as Mandelson had refused to hand over his phone and Morgan McSweeney had had his nicked, their messages were all gone too. Still, they probably weren’t that important. Were they?
Replying for the opposition, Alex Burghart suspected that the late release of the documents was the government’s way of trying to escape scrutiny. He was probably right. It’s far easier to avoid difficult questions when you’re speaking in Wednesday’s debate than during a statement. He also raised problems with Mandelson’s vetting though declined to mention that Kemi Badenoch had had no problem with his appointment to Washington at the time. Selective memories cut both ways. Burghart ended by talking about the limitations of the published files. Darren seemed pleased he had noticed.
That wasn’t the end of it, though. Labour backbenchers are still pissed off about the government’s handling of the scandal and are determined not to let ministers off the hook. Emily Thornberry and Matt Western both raised concern about the government’s apparent nonchalance over Mandelson’s links to undesirable Chinese and Russian oligarchs. Not to mention tax-avoiding tech bros. Not that Mandy would see this as a conflict of interest. From him it’s always been “Me first, country second”.
The last word went to Edward Leigh. He had done a quick word search on the files and realised there were no messages from or to Keir Starmer. Odd that. “It’s like he’s the Man Who Never Was,” he said. Give it till the end of summer and that might well become the reality.
