Mandelson refused to hand over his phone. The Cabinet Office wrote to Mandelson via his solicitors on 31 March asking for material on his personal phone. He told them to forget it, and the Government admitted it has “no further recourse”…
Pat McFadden thought the government was a mess. He told Mandelson “every meeting I have is ‘who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others'” and the PLP is “mutinous”. The 2026 version of ‘I’m afraid there is no money’…
Mandelson wrote a handwritten letter to Lammy saying the government would “never regret“ appointing him as ambassador. About that…
Mandelson criticised Starmer for not knowing what he wants.“They [No10] don’t work as a team, they are not led and none of them really know what Keir thinks or wants. In fact most of them don’t think Keir knows what he wants…”
He thinks Gordon Brown is out to get Starmer. Mandelson told McFadden that Brown “has it in for Keir (and Rachel) big time” and that Angela Rayner is “an instrument of destabilization”. Good job Starmer appointed Brown as a “Special Envoy” last month then…
McSweeney wanted to hire an external team to help run the dysfunctional No10. McSweeney floated an external strategy unit, “the equivalent of the Rand corporation,” because he couldn’t get good people in or bad ones out.
Aides tried to smuggle Starmer an economic minder. Mandelson and Vidhya Alakeson plotted to quietly install a “sage” adviser to “second guess the OBR,” careful not to look like a “shadow Treasury.”
Mandelson thought Streeting was having an “early mid life crisis“.
Powell and Mandelson tried to rush the Chagos surrender through before scrutiny. They failed.
Mandelson lobbied Labour Oxford graduates to vote for him in the Oxford Chancellor election. Canvassing Cabinet ministers, Mandelson told voters this was Labour’s “first real shot for a Labour figure to win” and to beat CCHQ-backed William Hague. He lost.
The Cabinet Secretary cleared everyone. Sir Chris Wormald ruled the appointment “unusual but not irregular,” confirming the vetting and conflicts checks happened after Starmer had already decided to appoint him.
Officials scrubbed Epstein from the answer to MPs. As the scandal broke, the Cabinet Office’s ethics chief pushed to “lose the last sentence referring specifically to Epstein” from the reply to the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
