The Mandelson files: How bad can it be?
6/1/202622 min
The ghost of Peter Mandelson returns as more than 1,000 documents, emails and WhatsApp messages due to be released – but how damaging will it be for the government?
With ministers, officials and advisors braced for impact, Sam and Anne assess what could be in the files, whether the most sensitive material has been withheld and what the disclosures reveal about government communications in the age of disappearing messages.
Plus, with the Makerfield by-election fast approaching, the duo examines mounting speculation over Labour’s future leadership.
As names continue to circulate around Westminster, is the party already preparing for a post-Starmer era and will it be a slow or fast transition?
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAnne McElvoy· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Hello, good morning, and welcome. It's Monday, June the 1st. This afternoon, over 1,000 pages of documents, emails, and WhatsApps to and from Peter Mandelson are going to be released. How bad can it be? My name is Anne McElvoy from Politico.
Sam Coates· Host0:22
And I'm Sam Coates of Sky News. Well, awkward and uncomfortable are two words used to me about what we're being braced for. Rather than resignation worthy, I think it stops short of that. Uh, we'll get the private thoughts of ministers, top officials, political advisors to disgraced peer, uh, all go into the public domain. And curiously, Anne, I'm told that initially some of our friends in those categories didn't hand over the messages that government initially demanded of them, and they had to be asked several times. I wonder if we'll ever find out who that was.
Anne McElvoy· Host0:56
That might be an unpopularity contest. [laughs] All electronic communications in the six months prior to Mandelson's appointment and for the duration of his period i- in office as ambassador will be included in the data dump, uh, today. We know that one exclusion, however, is material. The Met Police, uh, have requested be held back while they continue to investigate Mandelson for misconduct in public office. So we don't get the vetting file prepared, uh, ahead of his appointment