Peter Mandelson refused to hand over personal phone to UK probe

The UK government released a vast trove of documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador but the former envoy refused to allow them access to his personal phone, limiting the effort by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government to demonstrate transparency in relation to the calamitous hiring.

More than 1500 pages of documentation were published on the British government’s website just after 2pm local time (midnight AEST). They include emails, text messages and other exchanges between government ministers, aides and Mandelson in the run-up to his appointment as US envoy, a post he held from February to September 2025.

Contained in the documents published Monday were revelations that:

• In a handwritten note to the then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Mandelson assured Lammy he would “never regret” appointing him.
• Mandelson was asked to declare his contacts with foreign nationals as part of his vetting.
• President Donald Trump wanted to be gifted a personalized red box of the kind used by British cabinet ministers, according British embassy officials in Washington.
• The former head of MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service, warned Mandelson his emails could be hacked.
• Mandelson offered Starmer a meeting with Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel in July 2025. It is unclear if the meeting happened.
• In messages to cabinet member Pat McFadden in May 2025, Mandelson warned that Labour MPs were in a “mutinous state” and that Starmer “is not leading from the front.” McFadden complained that the government had the wrong priorities and was too focused on “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others.”
• Mandelson separately expressed his concerns that Starmer had a tendency to “advance / buckle / advance / buckle.”
• In a July 2025 message to Mandelson, pensions minister Torsten Bell warned “the big picture is messy” and that “everyone seems to think it’s someone else’s job to get the policy right.”

The release resurfaces a saga that has weakened and embarrassed Starmer over the nine months since Bloomberg News exposed the extent of Mandelson’s ties with the late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. An earlier tranche of documents in March showed official vetting of Mandelson had warned of “reputational risks” over Mandelson’s Epstein ties.

The scale of Monday’s drop - described by the government as one of the biggest-ever Parliamentary publications - means its full impact on Starmer won’t immediately be known.

But the prime minister has already suffered months-long blowback from both opposition parties and his own Labour MPs concerning the judgment he showed in appointing Mandelson, given the former Labour grandee’s history of resigning in disgrace from past government roles and a penchant for political maneuvering that earned him the nickname “Prince of Darkness.”

The scandal has already led to the departure of Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who quit in February citing his advice to the premier to appoint Mandelson. He was followed out of Downing Street by Tim Allan, who had been director of communications.

The disclosure of information relating to the former envoy was forced on the government in February by the main opposition Conservative Party, using an arcane parliamentary procedure known as a humble address. Under its terms, the government must disclose communications between Mandelson and ministers and officials for the six months prior to his appointment as ambassador, and throughout his seven-month tenure.

That has been complicated by the police investigation into the former envoy, with officers requesting that some information be withheld so as not to prejudice their probe.

Ahead of the publication on Monday, Starmer’s spokesman, Tom Wells. told reporters the task had involved every government department, resulting in the largest ever response to a humble address.

“It represents thousands of hours of work from officials across the government to deliver an unprecedented piece of government transparency,” Wells said. “Material of a party-political nature will be included in the publication, which is contrary to usual practice and precedent, in order to demonstrate the maximum possible transparency. A number of documents have also been declassified to enable publication.”

Starmer’s premiership is hanging in the balance not even two years on from his landslide general election victory in July 2024. His government quickly lost popularity with voters amid a series of scandals and missteps, not least the appointment of Mandelson himself.

Heavy losses at a set of local elections in May led to more than 90 Labour MPs calling for Starmer to resign. Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, is widely expected to launch a leadership challenge against Starmer this summer if he can first win a parliamentary special election in northwest England that’s scheduled for June 18.

Since Bloomberg’s investigation into Mandelson’s Epstein ties, which centred on information published by the US Department of Justice relating to the disgraced financier, further revelations in the Epstein files have led to a police investigation and plunged Starmer’s administration into political chaos as the premier struggled to defend his handling of the appointment. Mandelson has denied any wrongdoing.