00:00The Prime Minister had made an announcement that Mandelson was his nominee without caveats.
00:06The British government had sought agreement, the formal diplomatic process for a host government
00:11accepting a nominee from the US government and that had been obtained before I arrived in post.
00:18He'd been given access to the building, he'd been given access to low classification IT
00:25and from time to time, for case-specific issues, he was being given access to higher classification briefing.
00:33So I'm afraid I walked into a situation in which there was already a very, very strong expectation
00:40and you would have seen the papers released already under the humble address that coming from number 10
00:47that he needed to be in post and in America as quickly as humanly possible.
00:52The very first formal communication of this to my predecessor from number 10 private office
00:56being that they wanted all this done at pace and Mandelson in post before inauguration.
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