The search for the 'smoking gun' in the Peter Mandelson Files

What’s the story?

The release of email documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador in 2025 was long awaited from the Labour government.

But sadly, despite leading headlines in the 24 hours since, the documents haven’t contained the bombshell moment many were hoping for.

“There is no obvious smoking gun that puts an end to all our questions and queries,” says Emily Maitlis.

"One thing that is becoming clear is that there was a certain amount of due diligence over this appointment, but none of it seemed to filter through to the prime minister himself."

Lewis Goodall says the documents reveal that the due diligence report into Mandelson’s appointment was “littered with red flags” – and yet still it went ahead.

Emily adds that what these documents do expose is clues to how and why his appointment came about, and who was asking questions about his links to overseas regimes and, of course, Jeffrey Epstein.

The lack of an explosive revelation hasn’t stopped Tory leader Kemi Badenoch from demanding Keir Starmer step down from his role as Prime Minister. She claims Labour MPs have been approaching her to discuss a vote of no confidence in Starmer.

The News Agents aren’t buying her calls this time around – especially when Badenoch accuses Starmer of having made "catastrophic decision after catastrophic decision" despite herself having recently backtracked on demands the UK join the war in Iran alongside the US and Israel.

The rush to get Mandelson into the US ambassador role

What the documents do reveal is a hurried process to appoint someone to the US ambassador role quickly – likely ahead of Donald Trump's 2025 inauguration.

Details in the newly released documents show Mandelson was being given classified briefings by the Foreign Office before he had even been vetted by the security services.

When initially challenged in the House of Commons on the appointment, Keir Starmer said due process was followed, but has also taken personal responsibility for the appointment, saying he "made a mistake".

Concerns about the rushed nature of Mandelson’s appointment were raised at the time by national security advisor Jonathan Powell.

Also concerning, says Jon Sopel, is that some of the questions about Mandelson’s suitability for the role under Starmer are the same as were being asked in 2008 when Gordon Brown was seeking to reappoint him into the Labour government.

Did Keir Starmer want to give the job to a Labour 'buddy'?

Mandelson's rushed route into a key role can be explained, to some extent, in a new edition of the book Get In: The Inside Story of Labour Under Starmer, by journalists Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire.

In it, they claim Starmer's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney – who was mentored by Mandelson – was the person entrusted with appointing the US ambassador.

"Keir Starmer outsources his judgment on lots of lots of crucial questions," Maguire tells Lewis Goodall.

"He was told that the pluses outweigh the minuses, that Peter Mandelson would be good at this job, and so he appointed him."

Starmer and Mandelson, Maguire adds, were on "texting and nodding" terms, saying Mandelson would often share his "wisdom" with Starner, and hear nothing back from the PM.

"This reveals the extent to which Starmer doesn't have many close personal political relationships," says Jon Sopel.

“There's no relationship there between Starmer and Mandelson.”

"What you see from this is that Keir Starmer contracts out key decisions to people like Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff, who most certainly did have a relationship with Peter Mandelson."

Are the Mandelson Files, ultimately, a nothing-burger?

Let's be honest, the details in these files don't quite pack the punch many people were hoping for.

"I'm not sure these documents tell us anything that we didn't already know," says Lewis.

"We knew Starmer had made a bad decision in appointing Mandelson. We knew that he knew about the Epstein links."

The difference now, he says, is that it is laid bare in black and white.

"There is some political pressure over how rigorous the due diligence process was," Lewis adds.

"The PM said that there was a full process followed, and maybe it wasn't quite as full as he might have implied, but fundamentally, he's already absorbed the political damage on this.

"He nearly lost his premiership over it. If there is no smoking gun in the remaining documents, I'm not sure that it pushes it any further forward."

The texts and WhatsApps are still to come and those, Lewis says, will be “more personal” and could be “very embarrassing” for the government.

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.