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No 10 braced for ‘excruciating’ revelations as private messages between Mandelson and ministers to be released

Good morning. Many people despair at the quality of governance in Britain at the moment, but in one respect we are living through a golden age; if you are interested in contemporary history, and learning about what actually happens at the heart of government, then you can now – sometimes – access the sort of information never available before.

Today the government is publishing a mass of information – apparently running to three volumes, and more than 1,000 pages – containing the private messages Peter Mandelson exchanged with government ministers and officials when he was ambassador to the US, and before his appointment. Last month a minister compared this to the evidence released as part of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. But the Chilcot inquiry took place in the era before WhatsApp, and it was publishing secret memos – intended for circulation within Whitehall. WhatsApp messages are a lot more personal; reading them is like being able to eavesdrop on a private conversation. Mandelson is a man with spiky, controversial views, who loves gossip and plotting, and whose private views don’t always accord with what he has said in public. It should be fascinating.

These documents are being published because the government has to comply with a humble address – a Commons vote mandating ministers to release information – tabled by the Conservative party. Several humble addresses have been passed in recent years (since this ancient parliamentary mechanism, which had been forgotten about for decades, was revived during the Brexit wars by the Labour Brexit spokesperson, a certain Keir Starmer) but none of them have been as far-reaching as this one.

The Conservatives tabled the humble address because they wanted to learn more about how Mandelson came to be appointed ambassador to the US despite the fact that it was known at the time that he had maintained a friendship with Jeffrey Epstein even after he was first convicted for child sex offences. As Kiran Stacey, Henry Dyer and Pippa Crerar report, the documents out today will imply that the Foreign Office did not seem particulary bothered about ensuring that the supposed “mitigations” in place to manage the risks associated with Mandelson being appointed amounted to very much.

But, on the broader question of why Mandelson was appointed, we are unlikely to learn much because it is already obvious why he got the job: he wanted it, he was close to Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s chief of staff who had more influence over what Starmer did than anyone else, and McSweeney and Starmer were both persuaded that Mandelson’s fondness for dodgy billionaires would enable him to form a good relationship with Donald Trump (even though this argument was inherently flawed, because the Trump administration did not want him).

Instead, the main revelations this afternoon are likely to focus on what members of the government have been saying about each other in private. On the Today programme Chris Mason, the BBC’s political editor, said some of the messages would be “excruciating”. Financial Times says: “The messages are expected to include frontbenchers and Mandelson trading humiliating remarks about Starmer.” Politico’s London Playbook says: “One person familiar with the content of the files told Playbook it will be ‘toe-curling’.”

Government sources have been saying they don’t expect any of the revelations to lead to resignations. That’s not much of a bonus; for the Conservative party, today will probably feel like Christmas has come early.

Ironically, one person not likely to be embarrassed about any of this is Trump. Government ministers are always diplomatic and polite about the US president in public. It is fair to assume that, in private, their views are a bit more aligned with the views of normal people, like you and me. But parliament agreed that material deemed “prejudicial to UK national security or international relations” would be withheld, so any juicy anti-Trump stuff will remain secret.

James Murray, the new health secretary, has been giving interviews this morning. Speaking about the release of the Mandelson files, he told Sky News:

I think the level of transparency is going to be unprecedented. The volume of information that’s going to be put out is unprecedented.

It’s right we do that. We have been very clear that the appointment of Mandelson was wrong.

Parliament then decided that this information will be made public. The government is fully complying with that, and it’s important that we honour that commitment to transparency.

Here is the agenda for the day.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

Afternoon: The government is publishing the rest of the Mandelson files. Darren Jones, the chief seceretary to the PM, will make a statement to MPs to mark their publication after 3.30pm. The documents should be published when he gives his statement at the latest, but may come a bit earlier.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.

If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.

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Key events

The Labour MP Luke Akehurst is not impressed by what the Times is describing as Burnham’s new logo for the Makerfield byelection. (See 12.22pm.) Akehurst, who is not a cheerleader for the Burnham fan club, says:

I’m guessing this isn’t real as

A) it has no imprint to say it has been authorised for publication by the General Secretary of the Labour Party

B) the logo looks like it was designed in the early 1990s by a local branch of the Socialist Worker Student Society & doesn’t follow any Labour brand guidelines

C) there is a typo – should read “Vote Labour” not “Change Labour”

UK will not have to pay Rwanda £100m over failed asylum scheme, court rules

The UK will not have to pay the Rwandan government millions of pounds over a failed migrant deportation scheme set up by Boris Johnson’s administration, an international court has ruled. Rajeev Syal has the story.

Corbyn says ban on Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker coming to UK ‘absurd and cowardly’

Jeremy Corbyn, the parliamentary leader of Your Party, has also criticised the government’s decision to ban two US commentators from entering the country, apparently because their views on Israel and fears that what they say at speaking events could exacerbate antisemitism. (See 11.17am.) Corbyn said:

Banning Cenk Uyghur and Hasan Piker from entering the UK is an absurd and cowardly decision from an increasingly authoritarian government.

Let us call this what it is: an attack on the freedom to criticise Israel, as well as the UK government’s own complicity in genocide.

Andy Burnham revives call for Labour to loosen how it uses whipping system to force MPs to toe party line

Andy Burnham has renewed his call for Labour to relax with way it uses the party whipping system to get its MPs to vote in line with what the leadership wants.

The Greater Manchester mayor has been a critic of the whipping system for many years – leading to claims from Westminster insiders that it is naive to think parliamentary politics can operate without a mechanism to ensure MPs elected under a party banner vote in line with what the party decides.

But these arguments have not stopped Burnham restating his views in an interview with Patrick Maguire from the Times. Burnham is officially campaigning to be the Labour MP for Makerfied, but he is also unofficially campaigning to be the next prime minister – as part of a process that is widely expected to see him replacing Keir Starmer fairly soon – and so his views on the internal workings of the PLP (parliamentary Labour party) have now become highly significant.

In the interview, Burnham did not propose abandoning the whipping system in its entirety. But he said that it was wrong for Labour leaders in the past to use the whips to strongarm MPs into voting for measures they opposed.

He explained:

I look back at the times when I was in the PLP … if we’d gone with what the PLP was saying — and I am talking about Iraq, but I’m talking about other things as well — the conscience of the PLP will guide the government, that’s what I believe.

Burnham said he wanted MPs to be “authentic representatives of their places” and that they should not be punished “for taking a position that actually connects with people they are serving”.

He went on:

The loosening of the whip system would raise the status of members of parliament. It would let them appear more authentic to their constituents. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s like tablets of stone in Westminster, but to me it’s not: if a sizeable number of Labour MPs can’t support the government, then it’s probably the wrong thing.

In his interview, Burnham also criticised what he called “the sneering commentary that sometimes I get”, referring to the oft-quoted Westminister joke about his alleged ideological elasticity. (“A Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite all go into a pub. The barman asks: ‘What are you having, Andy?”) Burnham said:

I don’t want to sound too touchy about this, but rather than ridiculing me, I think it says something about the people that tell that joke: that they are factional. That they are not team players, that they are factional, and they revel in their factionalism within Labour, whereas I’ve tried to support Labour.

Burnham also showed the Times his new campaign logo, which will be printed on beermats and distributed around the constituency. Maguire said it is inspired by northern soul badges.

Andy Burnham’s new campaign logo Photograph: The Times

Now only the last fully resembles its former glory, and even then, with its perennial financial woes, only just. “You have to stay connected or you don’t succeed — you don’t exist,” says Burnham. “But the difference between the Labour Party and rugby league is, while rugby league has its challenges, it’s run by the northern set, and I don’t think the same can always be said of the Labour Party.”

No 10 says release of Mandelson files will be ‘unprecedented piece of government transparency’

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said the release of the Mandelson files today would be “an unprecedented piece of government transparency”.

He said that party political material would be included, despite precedent suggesting it should be included, and that some material had to be declassified to allow it to be published.

The material will be published this afternoon, ahead of a statement to MPs at some point after 3.30pm.

The spokesperson said:

The broad scope of the [humble address motion – see 9.26am] has required the discovery, assessment, analysis and preparation of thousands of individual documents and messages.

This is a task that has involved every government department.

The result is the largest ever government response to a humble address.

It represents represents thousands of hours of work from officials across the government to deliver an unprecedented piece of government transparency.

Our guiding principle throughout has been to comply as transparently and as swiftly as possible.

For example, 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.

In order to provide transparency to parliament and the public, alongside the documents we will also provide a clear explanation of the steps taken in this official-led process to gather the documents and the approach to any redactions.

And following the publication of the documents, the chief secretary to the prime minister [Darren Jones] will make a statement to the house.

New health secretary James Murray says he would no longer say trans women are women

James Murray, who recently replaced Wes Streeting as health secretary after Streeting resigned so he could start campaigning to be the next Labour leader, has said he is “absolutely clear” that single-sex spaces within the NHS should be “protected on the basis of sex”.

He made the comment in an interview on the Today programme where he also said he would no longer use the phrase “trans women are women”.

Murry said he had thought “in quite some detail” about use of language when it was put to him that he had in the past stated that “trans women are women”. Asked if he had changed his mind, he replied:

Yeah, I have changed what I would say. I wouldn’t say that phrase any more.

And I think that, you know, over the last few years, I think a lot of us, myself included, have thought about this question in quite some detail.

The supreme court has obviously ruled very clearly that biological sex is what matters when it comes to the Equality Act, and determining the importance of single-sex spaces …

I believe that single-sex spaces should be protected on the basis of sex, on the basis of biological sex, whilst at the same time believing in dignity for trans people, recognising that sex and gender are different things, but being absolutely clear that single-sex spaces within the NHS, for instance, need to be protected on the basis of sex.

In a separate interview, Murray told Sky News he has the neurological condition myasthenia gravis – a rare, long-term condition that causes muscle weakness. It most commonly affects the muscles that control the eyes and eyelids, facial expressions, chewing, swallowing and speaking, according to the NHS website.

Polanski condemns decision to ban two US commentators from UK, accusing Home Office of silencing criticism of Israel

Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has criticised the government’s decision to ban two US commentators from entering the UK. They are both strongly anti-Israel, and the Home Office has said their presence “may not be conducive to the public good”.

In a post on Bluesky, he said:

This is a really grim decision alongside Cenk.

People often talk about dangerous road we’d go down under a Reform government – this is another clear warning we’re down there already.

A Labour government doing everything possible to silence criticism of the Israeli Government

Referring to a newspaper claim claiming Andy Burnham could make Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, his chancellor if he become PM, Polanksi also said:

Shabana Mahmood, we’re told will get a senior position in an Andy Burnham government.

She needs to explain this strange and worrying decision, and Andy Burnham needs to make his view clear.

Farage claims Reform UK party of ‘patriotic working class’, as poll suggests union members as likely to back it as Labour

The Times has published polling today from JL Partners saying that trade union members are as likely to support Reform UK as Labour.

Around 1,000 trade union members were polled, and Reform UK and Labour both attracted 28% support. In 2024 Labour was on 24% with union members.

According to the poll, Reform UK is also comfortably ahead amongst Unite members (on 36%, against 30% for Labour) and amongst GMB members (on 31%, against 22% for Labour). But Unison members are slightly more pro-Labour (28%) than pro-Reform UK (25%), the poll suggests.

Commenting on the poll, Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said:

Labour is no longer the party of the patriotic working class. That mantle now belongs to Reform.

Union leaders told the Times the figures showed Labour would be on course for electoral wipe-out without a significant change of course.

Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, told the paper Labour had “no natural right to exist” and that there was “no guarantee that workers will return”. She said:

Labour has abandoned the working class, and the working class have abandoned Labour.

Being prepared to cut the winter fuel allowance, slash benefits for the disabled and aid and abet a jobless transition for oil and gas workers at the same time workers and their families are struggling with a baked-in cost of living crisis is not the change people voted for.

And Gary Smith, the GMB general secretary, told the paper:

Reform are no friends of workers. They want to cancel hugely important union rights and are targeting the pensions of the low paid.

But Labour has to show working-class people it can be on their side — as it did with last week’s essential help for our ceramics industry.

Times splash Photograph: The Times

The UK will not have to pay Rwanda millions of pounds over the failed migrant deportation deal after winning a case at The Hague’s permanent court of arbitration in the Netherlands, the Press Association reports.

I will post more on the story when I get it.

Former Labour Scottish first minister Jack McConnnell calls for joint Westminster/Holyrood inquiry into SNP embezzlement scandal

Jack McConnell, a former Labour Scottish first minister, has called for a joint inquiry between Holyrood and Westminster into Peter Murrell’s embezzlement of SNP funds.

McConnell said the Commons public accounts committee should hold a probe with the equivalent Scottish parliament committee.

In an interview with the Scotsman, McConnell said:

This is about the fact that the SNP were the third largest party at Westminster for the best part of 10 years. They received over that time millions of pounds of public money to organise their party affairs.

Obviously there are also issues about signing off accounts, and how seriously that was all taken, and I think on all these areas there are issues to be looked at, and recommendations that must be made. So I think this should be a joint public inquiry.

I think it should probably be led by the public accounts committee of the House of Commons but it should be done equally and jointly with the equivalent committee at Holyrood so it’s not seen to be the UK Parliament poking its nose into Scottish politics, but the issues about political party funding, about public money, and about the way in which the transparency of political parties’ use of small donations, the protection for small donors.

These are issues that are UK-wide. They’re issues for the Electoral Commission and for the UK parliament.

Two prominent US political commentators who were due to speak at events in the UK this week have said they have been banned from entering the country, Kevin Rawlinson reports.

What humble address says what government must release in Mandelson files

Here is the text of the humble address passed by the Commons about the Peter Mandelson files in February. It specifies exactly what the government should be publishing.

That an humble address be presented to His Majesty, that he will be graciously pleased to give directions to require the government to lay before this house all papers relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as His Majesty’s ambassador to the United States of America, including but not confined to the Cabinet Office due diligence which was passed to Number 10, the Conflict of Interest Form Lord Mandelson provided to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), material the FCDO and the Cabinet Office provided to UK Security Vetting about Lord Mandelson’s interests in relation to Global Counsel, including his work in relation to Russia and China, and his links to Jeffrey Epstein, papers for, and minutes of, meetings relating to the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson, electronic communications between the prime minister’s chief of staff [Morgan McSweeney] and Lord Mandelson, and between ministers and Lord Mandelson, in the six months prior to his appointment, minutes of meetings between Lord Mandelson and ministers in the six months prior to his appointment, all information on Lord Mandelson provided to the prime minister prior to his assurance to this House on 10 September 2025 that ‘full due process was followed during this appointment’, electronic communications and minutes of all meetings between Lord Mandelson and ministers, government officials and special advisers during his time as ambassador, and the details of any payments made to Lord Mandelson on his departure as ambassador and from the civil service except papers prejudicial to UK national security or international relations which shall instead be referred to the intelligence and security committee of parliament.

The key clause is the one demanding the release of “electronic communications and minutes of all meetings between Lord Mandelson and ministers, government officials and special advisers during his time as ambassador”. This is very far-reaching. The Tories have may expected Labour to object, but at the time (early February) the most recent revelations about Mandelson’s links with Epstein were so shocking Labour was not in a position to object.