Darren Jones below fireplace over leaked messages telling Peter Mandelson he was ‘so sorry’ on day he was sacked
Darren Jones is under fire after craven messages showing he told Peter Mandelson he was ‘so sorry’ he’d been sacked over his ties to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein
Darren Jones’s message to Mandelson was not included in a recent release of government documents(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
Darren Jones is under fire after craven messages show he told Peter Mandelson he was “so sorry” he’d been sacked over his ties to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The message sent by the PM’s Chief Secretary emerged last night despite not being included in this week’s latest tranche of Mandelson files. And its revelation came after he apologised to Epstein’s victims in the Commons.
In a gushing message sent to the disgraced former British Ambassador to the US on the day he was sacked, Mr Jones said he had “worked wonders with Trump” and had been doing a “great job”. And he also criticised Government advisers and suggested he was vying for a promotion in a Cabinet reshuffle.
The senior minister – who is head of the Cabinet Office and has led the release of the Mandelson files – has in recent weeks been forced to defend critics’ accusations of a Government cover-up by excluding some messages from the Mandelson files.
Mr Jones on Monday admitted he had sent messages to Lord Mandelson but said he was among those figures who couldn’t access their messages, either because of a change in device without backing them up or because they had disappearing messages function turned on. Lord Mandelson – who is assumed to have access to the messages – has refused to hand over his phone to the Government for inclusion in the files.
The Government has separately insisted some messages have been excluded from the files due to security reasons and due to a separate police investigation into Lord Mandelson.
In messages published by the Spectator magazine, Mr Jones told Lord Mandelson on the day he was sacked as Ambassador last September: “You’ve been doing such a great job, and you worked wonders with Trump. I’m so sorry about today.”
Elsewhere, Mr Jones – who was at the time Rachel Reeves’s Chief Secretary – told Lord Mandelson “it doesn’t fill you with confidence” when the former Ambassador said that growth plans were in the hands of the Chancellor, Angela Rayner and Jonathan Reynolds, then the Business Secretary.
Mr Jones also agreed with Lord Mandelson’s criticism of Mr Reynolds’s special advisers (Spads), saying: “I lost faith in his spads when, on a call about Port Talbot, they repeatedly took a different position to us in HMT (the Treasury) ‘because that’s what the unions want’.”
The messages also showed Mr Jones spoke to Lord Mandelson his “thoughts/advice” when he began “picking up reshuffle chatter” last year, seemingly in an attempt to progress his career. Asked which departments he had his eye on, Mr Jones said: ‘DBT [Business and Trade], DSIT [Science, Innovation and Technology] or DESNZ [Energy Security and Net Zero] in that order. I also like MoD but think that’s unlikely’ (because the Defence Secretary, John Healey, was ‘doing a good job’).
Mr Jones made clear that his preference was to replace Mr Reynolds at the DBT, criticising the now chief whip: “DBT my preference – everyone fond of Jonny but perception that DBT not firing on full cylinders…”
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby on Thursday morning said she had not seen the full messages but that she did not feel “great” about seeing Mr Jones’s message to Lord Mandelson after his sacking. Asked how it made her feel, she told Sky News: “Not great is the honest answer.
“But, look, I think Darren has been, clear, including in the chamber, how he feels about this entire episode, how he feels in particular about Jeffrey Epstein’s, victims. And I think he’s asked himself – he’s been clear about this – some quite serious questions in the way that you would want he and and all of us, frankly, to ask about what’s happened here.”
Asked if there is wider issue about how seriously men in Westminster take the abuse of women, Ms Rigby said: “I think like my totally honest view is that this isn’t a Westminster problem. This is a frankly what the Jeffrey Epstein saga reveals about gender dynamics right around the world, actually, but in particular, involving some of the most powerful people in the world in some cases, allegedly. That makes me, pretty angry.”
Asked about Mr Jones’s comments on the Government’s growth strategy, Ms Rigby told LBC everyone sends frustrated messages at work at some point. “Don’t put too much emphasis on one message which has come out that someone sends about someone else,” she said. “It’s intended to be a private message. We’ve all felt frustrations in our working life at some point, and sent a message, as I said, to a colleague or family member, where we deliberately exaggerate our feelings or otherwise. But so I really wouldn’t put too much emphasis on it.”
In a Commons statement on the Mandelson files on Monday, Mr Jones said: “Members should note some messages may not have been backed up where devices may have been changed, or disappearing messages were turned on, for reasonable and permitted reasons – including before the dismissal of Peter Mandelson or the passing of the Humble Address – myself included.”
In another debate on the Mandelson files on Wednesday evening, Mr Jones apologised to victims and MPs for himself treating differently because of his “influence and power” within the Labour Party.
He responded to a powerful speech from ex-Victims Minister Alex Davies-Jones, who read out words from Lisa Phillips, a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein who said the appointment of Lord Mandelson raised questions about whether lessons of the Epstein scandal “have truly been learned”.
In comments to the Commons, before his latest texts were published, Mr Jones said: “Did I consciously ignore the stories that followed Peter Mandelson, or indeed know about many of them, from many, many years ago? I do not think that I did. Did I ever ignore warnings that were put to me about Peter Mandelson? I did not receive any, to do so.
“But as I reflected on my hon. Friend’s speech (Ms Davies-Jones), it made me think: did I at best subconsciously treat Peter Mandelson differently because I believed him to have influence and power within the Labour party? I think the answer to that question is yes, I did.
“Have I benefited from that relationship in the time I have been an elected politician? I think in part the answer to that question is yes, I did. For that I would like to apologise to the House, to the victims, to Lisa, and commit to then doing something about it.”
