Coming in at over 1,500 pages, there\u2019s no doubting the volume of the Mandelson Files, dumped on the public to no great excitement on Monday. Their significance is rather less clear. <\/p>\n
They certainly haven\u2019t lived up to their billing. In February, when Tory leader Kemi Badenoch originally used a \u2018humble address<\/a>\u2019 to compel the government to release all documentation relating to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, the objective was clear enough \u2013 to establish what ministers and officials knew about Mandelson\u2019s links to the Big Nonce Jeffrey Epstein, as well as any other security concerns and potential conflicts of interest that were raised during his appointment. The files published on Monday singularly fail to do any of that.<\/p>\n We have pages and pages of private emails and WhatsApp messages. A lot of sound and even a little fury. But the objective of the original humble address \u2013 to establish what Labour higher-ups knew about the risks of appointing Mandelson, from \u2018his links to Jeffrey Epstein\u2019 to his connections in Russia and China \u2013 remains thwarted.<\/p>\n This is not a surprise. The Metropolitan Police had already requested that both a nine-page summary document compiled by UK Security Vetting (UKSV), as well as messages between Keir Starmer\u2019s then chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and Mandelson over his links to Epstein, be held back. The intelligence and security committee had also insisted<\/a> on redacting any information \u2018prejudicial to UK national security or international relations\u2019. Plus, the messages of some ministers and officials have simply disappeared thanks to changing devices, deletion and the convenient misfortune of having their phones nicked<\/a>.<\/p>\n The result is a mass of partial, liberally Tippexed correspondence, circling a void where the actual substance of the humble address ought to be. \u2018It is going to take a while for the most interesting material to appear\u2019, reported the Guardian\u2019s live feed, which was perhaps a tad optimistic. <\/p>\n Yet while the files cast a redacted darkness over the appointment of Mandelson, they do shed a relentlessly gossipy light on this most ineffectual and purposeless of governments. That\u2019s largely thanks to Mandelson himself. While no Dorothy Parker, old snidey Pete is ever ready with a withering aside on Starmer and his nominal top team. <\/p>\n Enjoying spiked?<\/p>\n Why not make an instant, one-off donation?<\/p>\n We are funded by you. Thank you!<\/p>\n \n \u00a35 Choose an amount<\/p>\n \n Donate now\n <\/p>\n \n Please wait… <\/p>\n Writing in May last year to Pat McFadden, his old New Labour mucker<\/a> and current secretary of state for work and pensions, Mandelson took aim at Starmer\u2019s then year-old administration. He charged him with not \u2018leading from the front\u2019, and complained<\/a> that Starmer \u2018lacks verve as does the cabinet as a whole\u2019. Citing McSweeney himself, Mandelson goes on to say that Starmer, who at that point was constantly u-turning on policies<\/a> and apologising for speeches, engages in the same cycle, \u2018advance \/ buckle \/ advance \/ buckle\u2019. A few weeks later he told McFadden that No10 was \u2018beleaguered and bereft\u2019.<\/p>\n He\u2019s equally scathing about other members of the cabinet. Of chancellor Rachel Reeves, he tells McFadden<\/a> that she\u2019s \u2018on a growth mission but without an argument about where the growth will come from or how\u2019. They both slam Ed Miliband\u2019s Net Zero zealotry<\/a> in pretty unequivocal terms and even complain about former health secretary and Mandelson confidante Wes Streeting. After McFadden complains about Streeting<\/a> circulating videos of and notes on Israel\u2019s war in Gaza in an attempt to turn the cabinet against the Jewish State, Mandelson quips: \u2018It is pathetic. I think Wes is experiencing an early midlife crisis.\u2019 <\/p>\n
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