The latest batch of UK government internal messages with Peter Mandelson reveal the sacked former Washington ambassador’s scathing opinions of UK prime minister Keir Starmer, whom he said lacked “verve” while his Downing Street office seemed “bereft”.
In one set of private WhatsApp exchanges last summer with senior UK cabinet member, Pat McFadden, Mandelson also appeared to suggest that former prime minister Gordon Brown “had it in for” Starmer and UK chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves.
The exchanges with the normally cautious and restrained McFadden, who like Mandelson is a veteran of Labour’s Tony Blair governments, stood out among the latest 1,500-page batch of papers that the UK government has been forced to release after controversy over Mandelson’s links to US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In May 2025, while Starmer’s government was being rocked by a huge backbench rebellion over welfare cuts, McFadden messaged Mandelson to say he was worried by “manoeuvring” from Brown and former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner – Brown had publicly criticised the cuts that month while Rayner negotiated with the rebels.
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“Doesn’t feel good for Keir,” said McFadden.
Mandelson responded that he had been “direct” about the UK government’s political difficulties in talks with Irishman Morgan McSweeney, who was then Starmer’s chief of staff and a friend of the ambassador’s.
“Keir is not leading from the front and Morgan is not organising the centre as it needs to be,” Mandelson told McFadden. “Gordon has it in for Keir (and Rachel [Reeves]) big time. He doesn’t seriously believe that Angela is an alternative but she is an instrument of destabilisation.”
Mandelson accused Brown of “doing to Keir what he has always done to successive Scottish leaders”.
Since this exchange, Brown has switched to publicly backing Starmer, who recently gave him a job as a global finance envoy. Rayner, however, later quit the UK government over her tax affairs but has re-emerged in recent weeks as a potential challenger to Starmer.
McFadden told Mandelson during their WhatsApp exchanges last May that he didn’t know what Starmer’s thinking was on the welfare rebellion, which they agreed could destroy the UK government’s authority.
“Does he even realise?” said Mandelson, adding that Labour MPs were in a “mutinous” state.
“Yes. Every meeting I have [with MPs] is ‘who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others’. They’re asking the wrong questions,” said McFadden.
The private exchanges with McFadden also illustrate Mandelson’s propensity to criticise people behind their back while outwardly being cordial.
In one message, Mandelson described as “pathetic” his one-time protege Wes Streeting, who last month quit as health secretary to mull a challenge to Starmer.
Mandelson told McFadden last July that Streeting had sent him a “hysterical” message calling for the UK to recognise the state of Palestine, which Starmer was considering at the time. Mandelson told McFadden that it made Streeting seem “immature”.
“I think Wes is experiencing an early mid-life crisis,” said Mandelson.
Yet his messages with Streeting at the time, which were also released on Monday, were much more cordial than his retelling to McFadden suggested.
Mandelson also told Streeting in another exchange last March that the UK government’s “problems do not stem from comms” [communications to media and the UK public], after a senior communications director had been forced out of Downing Street.
Yet in a separate exchange with McFadden weeks later, Mandelson told McFadden that “the comms leadership is sh*t”.
The 1,500 pages contain a slew of mildly embarrassing messages, including texts from senior Labour figures fawning over Mandelson.
But while UK government sources had been busy preparing the Westminster bubble for the release of supposedly “excruciating” messages that would humiliate the government, the latest batch was not as bad for Starmer as had been expected.
The papers released are more notable not for what they contain, but for what is missing. There are barely a handful of direct messages between Mandelson and Starmer.
There are also very few exchanges between the sacked former ambassador and McSweeney, who is believed to have championed his appointment to Washington despite concerns over Mandelson’s Epstein links.
The latest batch of papers reveal that Mandelson has refused to hand over his private telephone messages, which are believed to include interactions with McSweeney. Meanwhile, the messages cannot be retrieved from the Irishman’s phone because his mobile was stolen last year in a mugging.
Much of the latest batch of files is also obscured by redactions and deletions.
Opposition reaction to the files has focused mainly on McFadden’s private admission that Labour MPs wanted to tax more to pay out higher benefits – Reform UK said Labour was now the party of “shirkers not workers”.
Meanwhile, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who is fighting a byelection campaign that would allow him to return as an MP to challenge Starmer, said the messages proved “change can’t come soon enough”.
This week’s batch of Mandelson Files may lack a smoking gun to finally topple Starmer over what he knew about Mandelson’s Epstein links before sending him to Washington.
But the mere fact that the Mandelson issue is consuming Westminster all over again means the embattled UK prime minister must keep explaining and therefore losing.
