Good morning. Keir Starmer is chairing cabinet today as Labour MPs mull over the coverage of the Peter Mandelson files. In terms of revelations relating to Mandelson himself, the impact is probably not as bad as many MPs feared; Politico quotes one official as saying the mood last night was at the “top end” of expectations. Here is our main story about the data release, by Henry Dyer and Pippa Crear.
There will be more coverage today.
The Mandelson documents were only released because of a humble address tabled by the Conservative party. Kemi Badenoch launched this move in part because she suspected Starmer was covering up the full extent of what he knew about Mandelson’s connections with Jeffrey Epstein when he appointed him ambassador. The documents published yesterday did not provide any new evidence to back up this assertion, although some material relating to Epstein was held back because of the police investigation. But the joy of a fishing expedition is that you never quite now what you will catch, and the Tories struck gold yesterday with the revelation about Pat McFadden joking about how Labour MPs were always asking “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”. Most of the rightwing papers are splashing on this today, and it has the potential to be as damaging to the party as Liam Byrne’s famous “no money left” (another flippant remark, intended to be private, that was exploited ruthlessly, but unfairly, by the Tories).
The Conservatives could sit back and take the view “job well done’”. But Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, was giving interviews this morning and he told the Today programme that he thought Starmer had not revealed all his Mandelson messages.
double quotation markThere’s a lot of stuff that’s missing. Anybody who’s looked at these 1,500 pages will see acres and acres of white space, these constellations of asterisks, huge amounts of redactions.
Now, some of that is fine because it’s national security issues, our relationship with the Americans.
But it’s also clear there’s a lot of material that wasn’t published. And we know that because all ministers were asked to hand over their WhatsApp messages between them and Peter Mandelson and lots and lots of ministers, some very senior people, have handed over a nil return.
There are almost no exchanges between the prime minister and Peter Mandelson. There are no exchanges between people like Peter Kyle, who were very close allies of Peter Mandelson. And so it’s clear that stuff has been deleted or has gone missing.
When asked if he was claiming that messages from the PM had been held back, Burghart replied: “I suspect that, if they haven’t been handed over, they’ve been deleted.”
He pointed out that, in the Commons yesterday, when Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, was asked to give an assurance that Starmer had not deleted any messages from Mandelson, Jones was unable to give that assurance. Burghart went on:
double quotation markIt beggars belief that there were so few exchanges between Mandelson and the prime minister. There’s almost nothing in the record.
So either this stuff is being deliberately withheld or it’s been deleted.
But in answer to your question, yes, it’s obvious that there is still stuff that’s missing. Whether we ever see it or not, I don’t know.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
9.30am: Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive and estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon, is back at the high court in Edinburgh where, following his guilty plea on embezzlement charges, there will be a “narrative hearing” setting out an agreed accounts of his crimes.
11.30am: Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
12.15pm: Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is giving a speech at the SXSW event where he will call for a ban on social media for under-16s.
After 12.30pm: Sarah Jones, the policing minister, is due to give a statement to MPs about the murder of Henry Nowak, and the police response to it.
Lunchtime: Andy Burnham is doing a campaign visit in Makerfield.
1.30pm: Rhun ap Iorwerth takes questions as first minister for the first time in the Senedd.
2.30pm: John Swinney, the Scottish first minister, takes questions at Holyrood for the first time on a Tuesday, under a new plan to hold FMQs twice a week, not just once a week.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, has defended Pat McFadden over his comment, revealed in the Mandelson files, about Labour MPs always asking “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”.
In an interview with Times Radio, Thomas-Symonds said that McFadden was a “diligent, committed minister” and his views on social security and welfare “are very well known and consistent”.
double quotation markPat’s view has always been that it is not about benefits, that is not where the debate should be. The debate should be about opportunity, and indeed that is what he has been working on.
In an interview with Sky News, asked if he thought the benefits bill was too high, Thomas-Symonds said:
double quotation markIt depends which part of the budget we’re talking about, because if we’re talking about pensions, then I’m very proud that it’s this government that is putting those increases in the state pension, the amount it’s going up.
On the bills that I would call economic and social failure, where we want to give people opportunity. I think that is obviously a different part of the bill.
Asked if he thought those parts of the welfare bill were too high, he replied:
double quotation markYes. Of course.
The point is, though, the motivation for changing that is not somehow salami-slicing financial budgets. The motivation for changing that is because we want to give people opportunity, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.
Peter Murrell has arrived at court for a further hearing, following his admission that he embezzled more than £400,000 from the SNP, the Press Association reports. PA says:
double quotation markMurrell, the party’s former chief executive, was brought to the high court in Edinburgh in a white prison van.
He sat in the back wearing a dark suit with no tie.
Judge Lord Young will hear a prosecution narrative on Tuesday, where the facts of the case will be set out.
The UK government has let the Palestinian people down and failed to make it economically impossible for Israel to continue to act with impunity in the West Bank and Gaza, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Emily Thornberry, has said. Patrick Wintour has the story.
Good morning. Keir Starmer is chairing cabinet today as Labour MPs mull over the coverage of the Peter Mandelson files. In terms of revelations relating to Mandelson himself, the impact is probably not as bad as many MPs feared; Politico quotes one official as saying the mood last night was at the “top end” of expectations. Here is our main story about the data release, by Henry Dyer and Pippa Crear.
There will be more coverage today.
The Mandelson documents were only released because of a humble address tabled by the Conservative party. Kemi Badenoch launched this move in part because she suspected Starmer was covering up the full extent of what he knew about Mandelson’s connections with Jeffrey Epstein when he appointed him ambassador. The documents published yesterday did not provide any new evidence to back up this assertion, although some material relating to Epstein was held back because of the police investigation. But the joy of a fishing expedition is that you never quite now what you will catch, and the Tories struck gold yesterday with the revelation about Pat McFadden joking about how Labour MPs were always asking “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”. Most of the rightwing papers are splashing on this today, and it has the potential to be as damaging to the party as Liam Byrne’s famous “no money left” (another flippant remark, intended to be private, that was exploited ruthlessly, but unfairly, by the Tories).
The Conservatives could sit back and take the view “job well done’”. But Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, was giving interviews this morning and he told the Today programme that he thought Starmer had not revealed all his Mandelson messages.
double quotation markThere’s a lot of stuff that’s missing. Anybody who’s looked at these 1,500 pages will see acres and acres of white space, these constellations of asterisks, huge amounts of redactions.
Now, some of that is fine because it’s national security issues, our relationship with the Americans.
But it’s also clear there’s a lot of material that wasn’t published. And we know that because all ministers were asked to hand over their WhatsApp messages between them and Peter Mandelson and lots and lots of ministers, some very senior people, have handed over a nil return.
There are almost no exchanges between the prime minister and Peter Mandelson. There are no exchanges between people like Peter Kyle, who were very close allies of Peter Mandelson. And so it’s clear that stuff has been deleted or has gone missing.
When asked if he was claiming that messages from the PM had been held back, Burghart replied: “I suspect that, if they haven’t been handed over, they’ve been deleted.”
He pointed out that, in the Commons yesterday, when Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, was asked to give an assurance that Starmer had not deleted any messages from Mandelson, Jones was unable to give that assurance. Burghart went on:
double quotation markIt beggars belief that there were so few exchanges between Mandelson and the prime minister. There’s almost nothing in the record.
So either this stuff is being deliberately withheld or it’s been deleted.
But in answer to your question, yes, it’s obvious that there is still stuff that’s missing. Whether we ever see it or not, I don’t know.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
9.30am: Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive and estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon, is back at the high court in Edinburgh where, following his guilty plea on embezzlement charges, there will be a “narrative hearing” setting out an agreed accounts of his crimes.
11.30am: Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
12.15pm: Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is giving a speech at the SXSW event where he will call for a ban on social media for under-16s.
After 12.30pm: Sarah Jones, the policing minister, is due to give a statement to MPs about the murder of Henry Nowak, and the police response to it.
Lunchtime: Andy Burnham is doing a campaign visit in Makerfield.
1.30pm: Rhun ap Iorwerth takes questions as first minister for the first time in the Senedd.
2.30pm: John Swinney, the Scottish first minister, takes questions at Holyrood for the first time on a Tuesday, under a new plan to hold FMQs twice a week, not just once a week.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Source: Guardian - World News
