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00:00Hello, the rain has returned to London today and that's a relief for us because we were already wearing our
00:06waders to get through 1,500 pages of the Mandelson files.
00:10Well, Helen, we don't want to get transferred. It's just sensible dressing.
00:13Before we get into it, we'd love it if you followed us on Instagram. We are at intheroom.pod.
00:18You can also watch us on YouTube. We're In The Room Politics.
00:21And if you've got a burning question or comment, sometimes about how shiny my face is, you can email us
00:27intheroom at independent.co.uk.
00:30So I'm Helen McNamara, the former Deputy Cabinet Secretary.
00:33And I'm Cleo Watson, a former Special Advisor in Number 10.
00:36And this is In The Room.
00:39What we're talking about today is...
00:42You'll never guess.
00:42You'll never guess.
00:44In line with everyone else, the latest tranche, one of our favourite words, of the Mandelson files which were published
00:49yesterday.
00:50But we're going to be doing a lot more kind of looking down, looking up and consulting bits of paper
00:54today, which obviously makes me super happy.
00:57Yeah, I mean, it's a sign of how big this particular tranche is that Helen has not printed the whole
01:01thing off.
01:01She's taken the coward's way out.
01:03I've had to go electronic.
01:04It's real. Yeah, it's terrible.
01:06Well, of course, let's just quickly explain where we are.
01:08I mean, lots of people have seen this coming.
01:10But in February, the Conservatives pushed this humble address in Parliament, which has compelled the government to produce what is
01:19now 1,504 pages of documents about Peter Mandelson's role as U.S. ambassador or U.K. ambassador to the
01:28U.S.
01:29and how he got there and his dealings in government.
01:32And it's also brought in a load of quite embarrassing text messages and that kind of thing.
01:38So just to remind everybody, this is rooted in Peter Mandelson's links to the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and how
01:47he came to be our ambassador to the U.S.
01:50and then how he came not to be our ambassador to the U.S.
01:53Yes, and the government was forced into, although you can't really hear being forced in the way that they're proclaiming
01:59all the transparency, proudly proclaiming the transparency of the humble address.
02:03But the government was forced to publish all of these documents by a vote in Parliament.
02:07Our last episode we did in this was called All Filler, No Killer, where we were quite clear about the
02:14amount of kind of guff that had been published alongside some slightly more interesting stuff.
02:19And I'm afraid to say that we are in a very similar position here, although there's a lot of pages,
02:25not all of them shed any light on anything.
02:27Yeah, exactly. It's 10 times as many pages.
02:29But Helen, how about a quick run through of what, in fact, is just a load of nonsense in there?
02:34Well, the pages include an article in the New Statesman written by Peter Mandelson, which was published anyway.
02:41It includes three or four transcripts of speeches which have been made, also widely available to the public.
02:47Including a speech by Pete Hegseth, who's the US Secretary of War, which is also publicly available.
02:53Also publicly available. There's a transcript of a Donald Trump interview, I think, which, again, also published.
03:00I was quite pleased to see eight copies of Peter Mandelson's resignation letter.
03:05We think there are eight. There might be more. We've got a bit cross-eyed counting the number of versions
03:09of the same thing in terms of the email message that Peter Mandelson sent out when he resigned.
03:14There are 46 pages, which are just the printed out versions of Microsoft Teams notifications for meetings.
03:22And then there are just pages and pages of essentially redacted emails just with the people who were receiving them.
03:29So there's sort of half a page of email addresses and then just nothing.
03:34And then when you think, oh, this might be quite interesting, what you tend to find is there's a, you
03:40know, lovely crest of a government department.
03:42Which you were pleased to see.
03:43I love to see a crest, as you know. I love to see some great formatting.
03:47But sadly, it's not just all about the formatting, which is a shame, obviously.
03:50But you'd have a lovely crest. You'd have a dear, you know, here's the prime minister, foreign secretary.
03:57And then the title of something that looks quite interesting, like this is our position on US and Israel and
04:02Palestine.
04:03And then you've got two pages of absolutely nothing.
04:06Just asterisks.
04:06Just asterisks, all redacted. And then like yours, Peter Mandelson.
04:10It's like there's absolutely nothing there.
04:12Very juicy. I think that is one of the things that the kind of big defensive line from the government
04:18has been, we have been so incredibly transparent.
04:21And I think the problem with an enormous kind of dump of information like this is that by being so
04:28transparent, you're actually being quite opaque because the real details that matter aren't in there.
04:32And being so incredibly clear, you're actually not being clear at all.
04:37And I think just by producing loads of stuff, some of which is embarrassing, they think it's like a good
04:42defence to show that they've fully complied with the humble address.
04:45But the real questions we want to get to, i.e., what was the prime minister's judgment?
04:50Why was Peter Mandelson made the UK's ambassador to the US?
04:54We still are none the wiser on.
04:56No, and it makes my defender of government heart a bit sad.
04:59It's having a time of it this morning that hot.
05:02It really is because we shouldn't be here in any way, shape or form.
05:06So we shouldn't be here in terms of the appointment of Peter Mandelson as the ambassador, knowing what we now
05:13know about, it's going to get a bit Rumsfeldian,
05:16but knowing what we now know about what was known at the time about Peter Mandelson's relationships with Jeffrey Epstein
05:22when he was appointed.
05:24We shouldn't be here in terms of that shouldn't have happened in the first place.
05:27We shouldn't be here in terms of the way this whole thing has been handled.
05:30We shouldn't be here in terms of having to publish this extraordinary amount of information in such a weird way.
05:38So we talked at the beginning about the humble address and where it would come from.
05:42So what the humble address is is an amazingly kind of hot wiring of parliamentary and constitutional and government processes.
05:50So it's parliament demanding to see information.
05:53There's no optionality about it as far as the government goes.
05:55So you're basically seeing government done in the fresh air, if you like.
06:00It's like and the scope of the original humble address, which was back in February when Angela Rayner was very
06:07strongly on the attack for Keir Starmer.
06:10It was before all of the well, it would pick a point where there was troubles in the Labour Party
06:15in terms of their attitude to their own prime minister.
06:17But it was a real high point of anti-Starmerism in terms of the feeling in the PLP.
06:21So it was the Labour Party who voted for this.
06:24It was Labour backbenchers who've inflicted this on themselves, on their own government.
06:28And it would have been not very difficult at all to, when it had died down a bit, when it
06:33became clear the amount of public money and the amount of time and energy that was going to be spent
06:38of a government that has a thousand better things to do on producing this material that gives us this, you
06:45know, sum total of nothing.
06:46So the government should have gone back to the House of Commons and said, totally understand the need for transparency.
06:51This humble address is a barn door.
06:53It's going to waste millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on doing something which is inappropriate and improper.
06:59We are definitely going to publish all of these things relating to Peter Mandelson's appointment.
07:03But we have to narrowly define the scope so as to not waste time and money and to be really
07:07precise and proper about what we're doing and then publish something really quick.
07:11They could have done that within a month.
07:13Instead of which, it is heartbreaking to think about the amount of time and effort that has gone into producing
07:20something which either doesn't tell us very much or actually is net damaging to the reputation of the government.
07:27I mean, it is net damaging to the reputation of the government.
07:29You do not get the sense of a competent and well-functioning government here.
07:33And you have all sorts of extremely important constitutional norms that have just been broken.
07:40And obviously, I find that problematic.
07:43One of the things that really occurred to me was the recent Privileges Committee vote, which was whether Keir Starmer
07:49should be referred to the Privileges Committee
07:52over what he knew about Peter Mandelson and his relationships with Epstein and so on.
07:57The government successfully whipped that and they managed to persuade Labour MPs this wasn't a good idea and they weren't
08:03extremely aggressive on it.
08:04If only they'd shown that kind of gumption in February because they could, exactly as you say, they could have
08:10avoided all this.
08:11Every time, every fight you don't take on now, you are making doubly difficult for yourself in the future.
08:17And I think this is a perfect example of that.
08:20And the only reason I think it is less damaging than it could be is so many people have just
08:26priced in.
08:28Keir Starmer's probably on his way out anyway.
08:30Luckily, Andy Burnham's not in here.
08:33And does this even matter anymore?
08:35But it does matter because, you know, one of the most striking things about this document, I thought, or series
08:43of documents, is after the first tranche, we both said,
08:47this whole saga is about the Prime Minister's judgment and what the Prime Minister really thinks.
08:51And we can see things like there was a box of mission which set out his options on the US
08:58ambassador posting.
08:59And there was no reply from him on that.
09:01So we couldn't see what he thought.
09:03So I at least thought that would probably be included in this tranche, which it isn't, by the way.
09:08No box of missions to him are included in this one.
09:11You don't get his voice at all.
09:13You don't get any of his opinions.
09:14You occasionally get through a private secretary reporting back to people.
09:18We discussed whatever issue with the Prime Minister.
09:21He agreed.
09:22He always agrees.
09:23And then eventually there were three text messages he wrote to Peter Mandelson, which is in his own voice.
09:30And it's during the general election and then just after.
09:34And even in personal communications, he's saying things like, thanks.
09:39Good to hear from you, Peter.
09:40People just want politics that treads more lightly on their lives or a unite message is more strong than a
09:46division one.
09:47And it's so good just to be getting on with the job of governing.
09:50Your impressions got really good.
09:51Like so.
09:52Just it's too late here.
09:53It's not going to be any use to us now.
09:54If only he'd done voice notes.
09:56But you just think, like, where is this guy?
10:00And we are losing sight of what this whole thing is really meant to be about, which is what led
10:06him to make some of these decisions.
10:09And why are we even here to begin with?
10:11And there is no mention throughout these documents of any victims of sexual violence.
10:17So I think there's two really important things there.
10:20I think that Keir Starmer is not just absent in the sense that there's hardly any mention of him.
10:27He's sort of a completely absent presence.
10:30I don't think I've ever seen another situation where you would read the set of messages from the people who
10:36are working this closely to the prime minister and you wouldn't be able to feel the shape of a prime
10:40minister.
10:41So it's not really about kind of can you see that.
10:43But you can you can piece together the person and the atmosphere they create and the fact that there's deference
10:49and people will be forever referring to.
10:51Actually, it's more common to when you'd see a set of documents like this together, you'd get like 15 different
10:57versions of people saying, well, the prime minister wants this or that or the other.
11:00Yeah, and they'd all be contradicted because it obviously people would be saying the prime minister wants what they want
11:04and magically that would coincide.
11:05And he'd be trying to say, well, hang on a second.
11:07How can this prime minister who is all over this actually want all these contradictory things?
11:12So the absence of the prime minister is not just interesting and striking in the fact that there's no actual
11:19sign of his person, his voice, his messaging, his anything.
11:23But he's not he's not there as a as a kind of presence in the land in any of the
11:28conversations.
11:29There's no kind of, well, what does he think and what we're doing and why we're doing this?
11:32And actually, the prime minister was very clear.
11:35Most of the time, even with Boris Johnson, you and I occasionally get really cross because we'd get some back
11:39channel message from some department where somebody some special advisory number 10 that neither of us could remember the name
11:45of had been going around saying the prime minister wants.
11:47You're like, hang on a second. What's that?
11:49Yeah, there is just no the prime minister wants here.
11:52And I think that is really striking.
11:54You're much more important point about where are the victims or where is the sense of what actually is the
12:01problem here or what is the culture that allows you to get to a point where you just brush over
12:06the fact that this is a known association with somebody who has committed some horrible, horrible crimes.
12:12And that is known against women.
12:14I am really, really fed up with hearing the kind of we must think of the victims just said like
12:19a piece of throat clearing and a cough.
12:23When you think it has, in fact, and maybe we can be proved wrong.
12:27Maybe it is the case that the UK government has thought quite carefully about the actual women who live in
12:33this country, UK citizens who were affected by this scandal, who were abused, who every time this story is put
12:41to the top of the news, not their doing, not their making, nothing to do with them.
12:46They are, in fact, dragged back into it, whether it's OK, they might not be dragged back into it as
12:50impersonally they're on the front page of the newspaper.
12:52But it can't be anything other than traumatising.
12:55Are the government doing anything at all to support those people?
12:59They must know who they are.
13:01Like it might be the people think, well, actually, no, thanks very much.
13:03I don't really want your support and help.
13:04But it will be monstrous that if in all of this, for all of these fine, there's not even enough
13:10fine words in here, by the way, about...
13:12There aren't any.
13:12But has anybody actually done anything?
13:15Has anybody thought about the fact that those people might need looking after in the middle of all this political
13:20drama?
13:21Somebody ought to be saying, actually, do you have the help you need?
13:23Can we support you?
13:24Are there things that we could do?
13:26And I'm, to be honest, a bit more pessimistic than you, Helen.
13:29And I'm almost certain nothing has been done on that because you can bet your bottom dollar it would be
13:34in these files.
13:35Because in the abundance of transparency, I think the government would be very keen to show that that is some
13:40of the thinking.
13:41It's really disappointing not to see any internal questions, even with a less empathetic hat on, even with a kind
13:50of what is a sensible sound politics, is someone, you know, I thought there'd be an email to Jess Phillips
13:56saying, have you got thoughts on it?
13:58Help us out. What's our package?
13:59There's more talk about Gaza and Israel in here than there, I mean, a hundredfold than there is on anything
14:06like that.
14:07And I think that is a huge, huge shame and a massive missed opportunity.
14:12And again, this whole saga is not rooted in what it should be, which is people at the centre of
14:19this have been abused here.
14:21That's miles away from this. Instead, we're, you know, it's interesting and it's juicy stuff.
14:26But instead, we're looking at letters that Peter Manderson was writing and trying to become Chancellor of Oxford University.
14:32Should we talk a bit about Peter Manderson himself?
14:34Because I think the one person we feel like we know a lot more about after this tranche compared to
14:40the other tranches, do you think there's going to be a time when we stop saying the word tranche, tranche,
14:45do you know?
14:45I don't know. We should call it a cluster if we're going to call it anything.
14:49An omni tranche.
14:51So, Peter Manderson, I think, you can see, obviously, there's a lot to criticise.
14:57He was quite good at his job.
14:58I completely agree. I mean, I've got notes on style, but he, you know, according to these messages and Pat
15:07McFadden, who I have quite a lot of respect for too, I mean, they are quick to understand what the
15:11problems are and what should be done about it.
15:13And he's giving completely unsolicited advice the whole time, but it's not bad advice.
15:20And, you know, we have both been in number 10. I mean, particularly on the political side, you're constantly getting
15:27very helpful messages from, like, party grandees who think that they've got a silver bullet for you.
15:32And you have nothing, often there's nothing you can do other than say, thank you so much. It's incredibly helpful.
15:38Of course, I'll pass this on to the PM.
15:42I think when you said that, I literally had a little echo. I've definitely stood there next to you while
15:46you've been on the phone saying that to somebody.
15:48Yeah, yeah, of course. Like, thank you so much for your laminated note, which I now can't shred.
15:54Yeah, there's...
15:54Laminated for a reason.
15:56Yeah, exactly. I mean, there is lots of that, but you're right. Some of, you know, he's saying the whole
16:02way through, you guys need to have a sound economic plan based around growth and you need to have proper
16:08policies you can attach to it.
16:09And there needs to be leadership from the centre and you also need to organise your team better.
16:14Like, this is good stuff mixed up with, unfortunately, just things I can't stand. Like, I've done a SWOT analysis
16:24of, you know, where we are as a government. SWOT being a...
16:30It's a management consultant.
16:31Exactly. You know all this.
16:34I've done many terrible things, but I've not been a management consultant.
16:37All right then, Helen. SWOT stands for?
16:39Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
16:42That's like a true SWOT yourself.
16:44But yes, I think, unfortunately, most of what he says is layered in the most kind of disgusting, obsequious language
16:50and we'll happy to talk about that.
16:52I really, you know, as a student of the dynamics of power, I really enjoyed watching the...
16:59So this is...
16:59There's no earthly reason why any of you should read 1,500 pages of this guff.
17:05But if you do read all of the messages that all of the ministers effectively have given their text exchanges
17:12with Peter Mandelson,
17:14it's a sort of study in the ebbs and flows of power in a really interesting way.
17:19So one of the things that I noticed, you think, he's so smooth, Peter Mandelson,
17:23because on the night of the election in 2024 or the day after, he sends these individual...
17:28And the individual...
17:29It's not like a Greek message, like, well done, lads, you smashed it, high five, move on, now let's get
17:34governing.
17:34It's like he writes these lovely personal messages to everybody.
17:39And at that point in his, like, rise and fall, quite often he just doesn't even get a reply to
17:45some people.
17:45So he sends a nice message to Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, saying, like, well, a railway town like yours
17:51will be so pleased to have a transport manager.
17:53It's like, nice, that's a good message, well done.
17:56She doesn't even reply.
17:57So there's this period of time where obviously Peter Mandelson is trying to get a job,
18:02and there's quite a lot of his campaign to become the, is it vice-chancellor of Oxford as well?
18:06I think it's the chancellor.
18:08Yeah, and he's, I mean, this is also an interesting exercise in campaigning, by the way,
18:12just as a bit of a side note.
18:14He's trying to become the chancellor of Oxford.
18:16It ends up being William Hague in the end, but he contacts every Labour MP and cabinet minister
18:20who'd gone to Oxford to try and, like, get their network going.
18:24And he's quite often just sending, you know, vote for me to people like Shabana Mahmood,
18:29who, again, I'm proud to say does not reply.
18:31Just left on read.
18:33Just left on read.
18:34And I think, you know, there he is.
18:37He is hustling to get this thing done.
18:39It's such a lesson in, you know, if you want it, don't give up on your dreams,
18:44and you've just got to keep pushing and pushing and pushing.
18:47I mean, it's so incredibly transparent and gross, the way he, like, the way he packages
18:52what he wants in just the most sort of oily language you can possibly imagine.
18:57But it does seem to work in the end.
18:59It does work.
18:59And you see this thing where he's kind of on the back foot sending these messages saying,
19:04you know, hello, you did a really good job.
19:07Remember me?
19:07Anywhere I can assist.
19:08And all of that stuff.
19:09And then, actually, once he gets the ambassador job, the shoe's on the other foot.
19:15And the other person, the other side of the conversation, he's like,
19:18oh, congratulations on your new job.
19:20I can't wait to come out and see you in Washington.
19:22And he's like, yes.
19:23But, like, nothing.
19:24It just suddenly becomes a really dry texter and response with no real.
19:29And I obviously really enjoyed that.
19:31Yes.
19:31I thought the other thing that was fascinating is how incredibly wide his net is cast.
19:36So, obviously, he's speaking to many people within the Labour Party.
19:40It's clear he's speaking to conservatives.
19:42So, there's text exchanges with Ed Llewellyn, who was David Cameron's chief of staff,
19:46who became a diplomat after that.
19:48We should be clear that Ed Llewellyn is an ambassador, has been for a long time.
19:52So, I don't know if he has.
19:53Let's just say he's rooted in the conservative family.
19:55We have to also assume Peter Mandelson is speaking to actual conservatives as well.
19:58I'm sure he is.
19:59But we don't know that partly because Peter Mandelson refused to hand over his personal phone.
20:03Yeah.
20:04So, there are, I think, there are four different mobile phone numbers for Peter Mandelson in these documents.
20:09There's two government phones.
20:10There's a Washington one and he's got, there seems to be another, an American number and a UK number.
20:16And then there is reference a couple of times to messages on Signal.
20:20And that is a, and I think there might be, someone's got PM Signal new number somewhere.
20:27So, I don't exactly know how many phones we're talking about here.
20:30But the phone that we know is definitely not included is Peter Mandelson's personal phone.
20:34So, whatever messages were on that shall remain a mystery.
20:38The other thing that I thought was really interesting for close readers was you can see there's a difference in
20:45tone between the people that Peter Mandelson would effectively see, the messages with people he'd effectively see as a peer
20:50from the Tony Blair government or people who are very Blair-itey.
20:54So, there's a lot of conversation, long conversations with him and Pat McFadden.
20:59There's a conversation with him and Angela Smith, the leader of the House of Lords.
21:04And the difference in quality and openness and conversation in those messages versus what were either the Brownite camp, which
21:12you can see there's kind of his people are not his people.
21:15Or people he's just more wary of is really interesting because I thought…
21:18He's very aware of Angela Rayner throughout, isn't he?
21:20He's very, and he and Gordon Brown are not soulmates, I would say.
21:25There's, you know, strong, this episode has given a strong feeling on both sides, but he's very clear about his
21:32views on Gordon Brown.
21:33And the Pat McFadden and Peter Mandelson exchange is about actually the diagnosis of where the Starmer government doesn't work
21:40and what's missing and are really thoughtful, clever, interesting, serious people having a serious conversation.
21:47I think Pat McFadden comes out of it really well.
21:51Unfortunately, he has created a bit of a political bear trap.
21:55I suspect at the next general election, particularly we have a different Labour leader in place.
22:00In this case, I'm not sure the Mandelson saga will necessarily be a reason people wouldn't vote Labour.
22:09But that Pat McFadden text when he says, I keep sitting in meetings with people telling me who else I
22:18could tax in order to give other people benefits is so damaging.
22:23And the two tranches vary quite differently, the one we saw in February and the one we see now.
22:28And in February, it was getting closer to what this issue is actually about, which is what was the prime
22:33minister thinking?
22:34What information was he given to inform that decision?
22:36We're none the wise on that, by the way.
22:38But this later tranche seems to be closer to how does the government actually work?
22:43What are ministers thinking?
22:45You know, how can you have these strange people operating about talking in management consultancy speak and using their business
22:51interests and so on?
22:52And it is, I think, in some ways, a kind of more existential crisis as second tranche, not because of
23:00Mandelson at all, actually, or Epstein or any of what this is actually meant to be about, because it just
23:05shows at its very core, the Labour Party doesn't think it's doing a good job.
23:11And they're kind of feeding the lines to the opposition parties.
23:15Yeah, and I think of the many damning things about what Pat McFadden said, the big kind of cultural historic
23:21view of the Labour Party was that they're just super good at spending other people's money.
23:26And Tony Blair and New Labour did quite a lot to move that argument somewhere else.
23:31We are straight back in it now.
23:33And actually, this whole thing just shows how good the government are at spending other people's money without really thinking
23:39about it.
23:39It's our money that's all been spent on this humble address nonsense, which is totally unnecessary.
23:44I would love to have a government that cared a bit more about those things.
23:47We're making those arguments more.
23:49I'm really sorry.
23:49You would like to see this.
23:51We're not spending public money on this.
23:52It's not worth it.
23:54The second thing is there is no earthly reason.
23:56I've gone back to the humble address text, as you would imagine.
23:59There is no earthly reason why that message was published.
24:03Totally.
24:04So what advice that was given that meant that that message with this hugely damning quote, which is about welfare
24:10spending.
24:11It's not about government policy on the appointment of Peter Mannerson or anything to do with foreign affairs or anything
24:16to do with anything in the scope of this humble address.
24:19What authority?
24:20That was published.
24:21It didn't need to be.
24:22So there's both the kind of how on earth has that been done?
24:26And also, how are the government so underconfident that when they saw this, which is, I mean,
24:32red flag of red flags.
24:34The Conservative Party produced a poster within two hours.
24:37You don't have to be a political mastermind to work out that's going to be problematic.
24:41Why didn't they turn around to the civil servants and say, hang on a second?
24:46Are you really sure about this?
24:47We don't think you should be publishing that.
24:48Why didn't Pat McFadden say that?
24:50If I was him, I'd be like, well, hang on a second.
24:53No, just no.
24:54No is sometimes a complete answer.
24:56And some of this should have been a lot more no on we're not publishing this stuff.
25:01Other kind of interesting inside the weeds of the messages.
25:05So if you remember, Wes Streeting had boldly got ahead of the situation and published his
25:11own WhatsApps with Peter Mandelson.
25:14I do remember.
25:15I do remember.
25:16When he was still a government minister.
25:17He's obviously no longer a government minister.
25:19And it turns out they hadn't, in fact, published the complete set of his messages.
25:25Yes, and they weren't, they're not gotcha things, but there's a section where he's saying
25:32that Peter Mandelson masterfully teed someone at dinner.
25:35And then there's a meme of the prime minister in a royal male uniform, which is referring to
25:42him taking the king's letter to Donald Trump in the Oval Office, which people might remember.
25:47And, you know, is that a, I suspect that is not meant in the huzzah spirit that you might
25:53imagine.
25:53It's, it's potentially meant to be quite derogatory, but it's, it's, it's just seemed,
25:59you know, Wesley Snipes, what are you doing?
26:01If you're going to publish your own messages, publish your own messages.
26:04But it was not that, you know, considering how incredibly bamboozling this massive tranche
26:09of documents is, that was actually one of the easier things to work out.
26:13What had he told everybody in February and what's come out now?
26:16And it's just all a bit cozier and a bit bitchier than first implied.
26:21And I can't imagine it's terrific news for him in a possible impending leadership contest.
26:27It just seems like a really bad judgment to try and get ahead of it by being transparent and
26:32then not to be totally transparent.
26:33It's just smacking yourself in the face.
26:35So notwithstanding what West Streeting decided to produce or not, there is, you know, interesting
26:41chit chat on there where they decide to speak on the phone instead.
26:43You alluded earlier to people deciding to use signal instead for some communications.
26:50I mean, aside from what people may have chosen to release out of their, you know, personal
26:57mobile phones or from their documents and so on, you know, this also speaks to personal
27:03experience for us from the COVID files where, I don't know if this is better or not, but
27:09embarrassingly, most of my messages were just like hearts for anything Chris Whitty said.
27:14Um, it's not embarrassing at all.
27:16That's the appropriate response.
27:17Yeah.
27:18He'd say something and I'd be like, thumbs up, Chris.
27:20Um, but it, I, I suspect, but maybe you're wrong.
27:24This does not foster more open communication in government.
27:28And, you know, in future, if you are the team who are in charge of putting this kind of
27:33documentation together, do you have to expand the net further?
27:36You know, signal is highly encrypted.
27:38So you're right in saying that there's quite a lot of messagings in here, which you would
27:42expect is someone saying like, actually, let's chat on the phone.
27:45There's lots of phone calls.
27:47What is really striking to me is that as much as we've got the pages and pages of meeting,
27:52uh, there was a meeting did happen.
27:55We've got pages and pages of meeting and pages and pages of phone call happened.
27:59There's no records of any of these things.
28:01Now I am absolutely not saying quite often, and definitely Emily Thornberry and her got into
28:06a right old state about this, her committee, that every single thing that everybody does
28:10should be recorded.
28:12Absolutely not.
28:13That way, complete madness lies.
28:14I don't remember seeing any formal meeting notes of meetings in these documents.
28:20And that is really weird.
28:22Yes.
28:22And actually what you do see is the prime minister's, um, private secretary on foreign affairs,
28:29who's a young woman, whose name I'm not going to say because I think we should take her
28:33name out of our mouths.
28:35It's not necessary for her to be named, but she's all over these papers because she is
28:39the poor person who's constantly trying to coordinate decisions, keep like government
28:45decisions on foreign affairs on track and trying to communicate out what the prime minister
28:49thinks on certain things.
28:51So, you know, she's in here frequently on email.
28:54I really feel for her today because, you know, she is obviously doing an excellent job in very
29:00difficult circumstances.
29:01She is not a decision maker, to be totally clear.
29:04She's just in charge of like coordinating, communicating what her kind of political overlords
29:09think.
29:10And I don't think it's really fair that she's named in this and that so many of the emails
29:18that aren't redacted are her ones.
29:21And what I'm quite interested in is that I think the big juice today is what are the
29:26WhatsApps between Pat McFadden and Peter Mandelson or Wes Streeting and Peter Mandelson?
29:33What is less interesting by the sounds of things to most people is how the civil service are
29:38communicating around this stuff and how they are commuting with Peter Mandelson.
29:42And it feels much more formal.
29:43It feels very polite.
29:46And to me, there was nothing to see there.
29:49But to Helen.
29:51And, you know, for those people who don't know, an interesting thing about Helen recently is
29:55that she got her chainsaw degree.
29:59If that's what it's called.
30:00And so she can now, a bit like that chap in Argentina, she can now chainsaw her way through
30:05all this dead wood.
30:06And so when she read me these, she said, oh, my gosh, listen to this.
30:09And she read me these letters.
30:11And I was like, right, OK.
30:14And then she told me the translations of what's actually being said.
30:17And it is quite devastating.
30:18But no one will pick this stuff up.
30:20So perhaps we'll do a little exercise.
30:22Shall I read an Antonio Romeo or an Ollie Robbins email, Helen?
30:25Yes.
30:25So you've got to have your fun where you can, right?
30:28One of the bits of my fun is to admire, there's a couple of civil servants in here, very much
30:35at the top of their game.
30:36So Antonio Romeo, who in this period was the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office, and
30:41Oliver Robbins, who was in this period Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development
30:47Office.
30:48Neither of them are in those jobs anymore.
30:50One of them is the Cabinet Secretary, who actually sacked the other of them.
30:55So there we go.
30:56Oh, good.
30:57Times move on.
30:58So, yes.
30:59And there's a couple of exchanges.
31:01Antonia, there's obviously something that, and this is where the redactions are quite
31:06appropriate because it's to do with the Home Office.
31:09So you can, you don't have to be a Jedi to work out that that's to do with security, that
31:13this debate is going on.
31:16Peter Mannerson has obviously decided that he wants to do something which is getting in
31:20the way of what the Home Secretary wants.
31:24And that's the kind of background scene.
31:25Stay in your lane, Peter.
31:26Well, that is basically, effectively what this is.
31:29Okay.
31:30So here we go.
31:31This is from Antonio Romeo to Peter Mandelson, personal.
31:36Dear Peter, thank you for your support and engagement on Asterix.
31:40And what you have been working with, Asterix.
31:42Your personal involvement has been instrumental in getting us to this point.
31:46That just means get lost.
31:50You'll be aware as we approach your meeting with X that this is a sensitive time.
31:55Back off.
31:56Yeah.
31:56The Home Secretary has decided there should be no engagement with X on this issue until
32:01after your meeting with X has taken place, a position has been agreed.
32:04This is due to X.
32:06Back off again.
32:07I'm sure this has been fed back to you through usual channels, but given the importance of
32:11the issue and the strength of the Home Secretary's view, I thought best to flag with you directly.
32:16That's like the most threatening thing you can do.
32:17I mean, you don't have to be Antonio for that to be the most threatening thing you can do.
32:21You're the permanent Secretary of the Home Office.
32:22You are sending a very clear message to the Ambassador on behalf of the Home Secretary to
32:28say you have been told you are not doing this.
32:31What's really interesting and not surprising, but it definitely gave me pause for thought
32:35about how this might work in future bits of life.
32:38There is such a difference between civil servants speaking to civil servants and understanding
32:42the hierarchy, which is I don't care who you are, Sunshine.
32:45You are Her Majesty's Ambassador in Washington.
32:49You are not actually in charge of government policy on anything.
32:53Yeah.
32:54And because it's Peter Mandelson, Peter Mandelson doesn't buy that at all.
32:58Yeah.
32:58I am PM.
32:59That is a very strong.
33:00If you were a normal diplomatic civil servant and you got that sort of letter from the Home
33:06Office Permanent Secretary, you would know you were in quite a lot of trouble and you
33:10strayed quite far across your brief.
33:12I mean, there is many dynamics that have gone kind of astray out of normal governing here.
33:16One of them is Peter Mandelson is in this slightly out, or definitely believes himself to be in
33:21a slightly outside political role and therefore is not obeying any of the normal things.
33:26But he's actually in a civil servant structure and he's been told both by Antonia and by
33:32Ollie Robbins at various other points, back off, that's not your business.
33:37And Peter Mandelson, you can see, is behaving as if he is the government.
33:41I thought our government was doing the government view is this, my job for the government.
33:45It's like, hang on a second, your job is to fit quite clearly in the structure.
33:48You actually work for the foreign secretary.
33:50You're in a different place.
33:51So you've got a politician who's in a sort of civil service role, a civil service diplomatic
33:56role, who's behaving like a politician.
33:58And then you've got civil servants entirely in the kind of wrong framing.
34:05Helen, if I'm totally honest, I'm not spying any kind of major bombshells in this tranche,
34:10but I mean, do you think that's fair?
34:12I think you've missed the accountability bombshell.
34:15So actually, of all the things that happened yesterday, something properly unprecedented did,
34:20which is the civil service presented and prepared a whole set of documents themselves with no
34:26ministerial accountability, and that was presented to Parliament.
34:30So no minister was involved in the decision making and putting together any of these dossiers.
34:36And that just sort of shouldn't happen and couldn't be allowed to happen and isn't the
34:42way our country actually works.
34:44So it sounds really technical, but actually, it's quite important.
34:48And I suspect that the government might, in fact, be regretting it.
34:52And if anybody thinks this is a good thing for democracy, they are wrong.
34:56So I don't think humble addresses are appropriate anyway.
35:00You shouldn't be able to force the government to live publish its workings out at the time.
35:05That's not how our constitution works.
35:08They have created an absolutely impossible situation for a future government.
35:13Absolutely impossible.
35:14So this government was on the back foot with the majority that it has.
35:20Imagine if you're a government, and we have to imagine it, we had it in Brexit times with
35:23a really thin majority or minority, where you are in fact forced by Parliament to publish
35:30your work as you go.
35:31What the hell is going to be written down then?
35:33If we have a coalition or a minority government next time around?
35:38I think it's really constitutionally problematic.
35:40The great irony with the humble address is that it was Keir Starmer who sort of brought
35:44it back into fashion during the Brexit years.
35:46It was he who forced Theresa May to publish the advice you received from the Attorney General
35:52at the time.
35:52Which was wrong.
35:53Which was wrong.
35:54And so here we are, you know, you sort of reap what you sow later on.
35:59I thought your point about not having ministerial oversight is so important.
36:03And I assume there's a deliberate reason for that, which is basically no one wants to essentially
36:07be in charge of it.
36:08There must have been some conscious decision here.
36:10And you think, again, not only would that have seemed genuinely transparent, and you'd
36:17had a figurehead who was making some decisions here and actually asking some of the right
36:21questions.
36:21And I imagine there's been all kinds of tussles with the Intelligence Committee and all that
36:27kind of thing.
36:28But also, they would have had their head screwed on well enough to think, I don't think, guys,
36:32is we should have as many references to our thinking on Palestine and Israel here.
36:37Because if there's one thing the Parliamentary Labour Party really doesn't enjoy, it's lengthy
36:43discussion about that.
36:45And us, you know, talking about it behind the scenes and our internal squabblings about it
36:50and actually showing we're not quite sure where we sit on some of this stuff.
36:55It doesn't need to be in there.
36:56It's gone way over.
36:57And this fits with what you were saying about the victim mindset, which is being quite passive
37:03and things happening to the government rather than someone taking charge.
37:08And it's a bit like the, you know, the Tories have done it a bit talking about COVID, but
37:13the current government talking about inheriting 14 years of Tory rule or the situation in Iran.
37:21And yeah, you can be victims of circumstance sometimes.
37:25That's really difficult.
37:26But in the kind of pure political way, the public don't find it reassuring having people
37:32who are much more powerful and important than them saying, sorry, guys, yeah, life is really
37:37crap at the moment, but it's just how it is.
37:39And your bills are going to go up a bit.
37:41And they're not in charge.
37:42It's like it's it's so underconfident.
37:45There is something about the victim mindset, as you say, about this really great book about
37:51accountability and about how all we've done in modern life is create all of these structures,
37:54which makes all of us not accountable for anything.
37:57And that is the first eight pages of this document are a case study in it's not my fault.
38:03There's nothing I can do.
38:04I'm trying my best.
38:05I've added on all these other people.
38:08So it's their problem.
38:09So somehow all the permanent secretaries of Whitehall have been dragged into this as being
38:12accountable for whether the documentation is right or not.
38:16Hang on a second.
38:17Why have we made this everybody's problem?
38:19Yeah.
38:19And yet no one's problem and no one's accountability.
38:22And bluntly, civil servants should not be left to their own devices.
38:25And I say that with love.
38:26But like this is a really good example of why actually ministers matter.
38:31And you need to have a controlling ministerial, political, accountable, parliamentary mind,
38:38which goes back to what is the point of this?
38:40You're not just doing it because you're doing it and therefore you're doing it.
38:44And here we are and it's this sort of self-flagellating, underconfident, awful kind of, it's like
38:51a cry for help.
38:52But actually, one of the great ironies, I think, with this big tranche of documents is
38:57it is a perfect metaphor for the circumstances in which the government finds itself at the
39:02moment.
39:02And it is in there with Peter Mandelson saying Keir Starmer is not leading properly and his
39:07team isn't organised properly and no one knows where they're going on things.
39:11And that's clear with whoever's put this document tranche together as well.
39:15I mean, in this sort of anxiety to seem as transparent as possible, that's just patently
39:20not true because, you know, as sausages go, this one is absolutely loaded with sawdust.
39:26There's very little substantive meat in there at all.
39:30No one knows what the prime minister thinks and no one really knows whether they should be
39:35pressing head with anything at all bold or interesting because, as Peter Mandelson explains
39:43Morgan McSweeney's view, the whole time they're taking steps forward and then rolling over and
39:50taking steps back.
39:51We've seen it on welfare.
39:52We've seen it on winter fuel allowance.
39:55It keeps happening again and again that, you know, ministers, the civil service, whoever
40:01think, oh, I can take a step forward and I've been told there's been a reset and I can do
40:05something really bold now.
40:06And then they almost immediately are told, actually, no, shh, quieten down.
40:11Let's seem transparent.
40:13Let's seem like we're delivering.
40:15Let's seem like we're talking about change.
40:17And we'll be able to point to a few things that, you know, have been years in the making,
40:21to be honest, like immigration numbers coming down and hospital wasting times coming down.
40:26But basically, the situation is just going to rumble on as usual, which is, you know,
40:32why when we get away from the metaphor, when we get into actually how the country is being
40:36run, people are turning to places like reform and the Greens because they do actually want
40:40change.
40:41And the whole, the whole problem with these Mandelson files is it also gives the sense
40:47that everyone's the same in the centre of kind of power and the establishment.
40:53There are, there are people Mandelson types everywhere and essentially they're all tarred
40:58with the same brush.
40:59Everyone's at it.
41:00People want something new and different.
41:03It all just feels very tainted by the same thing.
41:06Stagnation.
41:07Thanks for listening to today's episode.
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41:30This podcast is part of the Independent Podcast Network and produced in association with
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41:36The executive producers are Carrie Rose and Olivia Foster and the producer is Sam Durrell.
41:41A special mention to our content editor, Maya Anushka, our video editor, Vali Raza, and
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41:48Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.
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