{"id":513372,"date":"2026-06-01T18:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T18:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/513372\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T18:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T18:00:15","slug":"uk-ministers-braced-as-thousands-of-private-texts-released-with-peter-mandelson-files-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/513372\/","title":{"rendered":"UK ministers braced as thousands of private texts released with Peter Mandelson files \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Mandelson<\/a> said the British government would \u201cnever regret\u201d appointing him as Britain\u2019s ambassador to the US<\/a>, a note published alongside thousands of documents about the posting has revealed.<\/p>\n

The second tranche of documents relating to UK prime minister Keir Starmer<\/a>\u2019s decision to give the prestigious Washington job to Mandelson rather than a career diplomat were released by the British government on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Mandelson also apparently \u201cdeclined to comply\u201d with a request to hand over his personal phone and allow the government to publish WhatsApp<\/a> messages and other information related to his appointment, the documents showed.<\/p>\n

Ahead of their publication, the prime minister\u2019s official spokesman described the sweeping whole-of-government effort to publish the documents as an \u201cunprecedented piece of government transparency\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ministers were braced for embarrassing revelations ahead of the publication of the files, which include thousands of previously-private WhatsApp messages exchanged between figures at the top of government.<\/p>\n

The note, dated November 18th 2024, appears to have been written as Mandelson was awaiting the results of a vote to decide Oxford University\u2019s next chancellor. He was said to be among the frontrunners for the Oxford University position at the time.<\/p>\n

The letter, to then-foreign secretary David Lammy, was written in blue pen on notepaper headed with Mandelson\u2019s name and a House of Lords seal. It read: \u201cDear David, As today (and all week) is polling day in Oxford and I am returning to London, I wanted to drop you a line, personally, about Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully, the media speculation has gone away and I hope this was not too irritating to you. I just wanted you to know that if you were minded to appoint me I would make sure you never regret it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navigating Britain\u2019s interests \u201cthrough the Trump administration will require super-human skills and luck and a massive team effort\u201d, he said, adding: \u201cFor me it would be the last thing I do in public life and it would be a huge honour to serve you and the Government in this role. So if you are up for it, so am I.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are occasional references to Ireland in the new files, including a record of a conversation with then Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn in January 2025.<\/p>\n

Benn told Mandelson that unionism was in a difficult situation, but that it was optimistic about the Trump presidency.<\/p>\n

The release showed Mandelson exchanged WhatsApp messages with a series of government ministers.<\/p>\n

On July 20th 2025, he told pensions minister Torsten Bell \u201cthe government doesn\u2019t do policy, generally speaking, well enough\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bell told him: \u201cThat is definitely true \u2013 everyone seems to think it\u2019s someone else\u2019s job to get the policy right\u2026 Which is very odd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mandelson replied: \u201cAs the saying goes, rubbish in rubbish out\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, he said former transport secretary Louise Haigh\u2019s exit from government was \u201charsh\u201d after she quit over a fraud offence.<\/p>\n

In a message to her on November 29th 2024, he said: \u201cLou, I am very sorry about this. You have been brave and loyal in your decision but it seems harsh given you were appointed in full knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you have acted in a way that enables you to come back later and everything you say and do now should be done with that in mind. Strong and honourable.\u201d – PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peter Mandelson said the British government would \u201cnever regret\u201d appointing him as Britain\u2019s ambassador to the US, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,42438,7,8],"class_list":["post-513372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-peter-mandelson","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116676160753971111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}