The vast trove of WhatsApps and emails reveal Peter Mandelson’s influence across Government, where he advised ministers and lobbied for his own interests while savaging Keir Starmer
Peter Mandelson branded Keir Starmer’s No10 “beleaguered and bereft” and said the Prime Minister lacked “verve” in explosive documents published today.
The vast trove of private WhatsApps and emails reveal the disgraced peer’s influence across Government, where he offered advice to ministers and lobbied for his own interests while savaging Mr Starmer behind his back.
He refused to hand over messages from his personal phone to officials tasked with compiling more than 1,400 pages of documents on his doomed appointment as US ambassador. And the Mirror understands he has failed to hand back his £75,000 payout.
A Labour source said: “Mandelson should hand over his phone and hand back his pay-off, but as always he’s only interested in himself.”
The Mandelson files are the biggest disclosure to Parliament since the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War, costing the taxpayer £1million. More than 1,400 documents published today expose his scathing views of the Prime Minister, who fast-tracked him to be US ambassador ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration last year.
In a fawning handwritten letter in December 2024, he told the-then Foreign Secretary David Lammy that the Government would “never regret” handing him the plum post. But this fateful decision has cast a dark cloud over Mr Starmer’s premiership.
The PM sacked him in September 2025 after fresh revelations over his friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. But the scandal has refused to go away, leaving lingering questions about Mr Starmer’s judgement.
Heavily redacted files show Lord Mandelson lambasting the Government’s strategy as well as laying into the PM and Downing Street officials. WhatsApps with Cabinet Minister Pat McFadden reveal he said Mr Starmer “lacks verve as does the Cabinet as a whole” and said he should be more “Trumpian”.
Describing No10, he said: “They don’t work as a team, they are not led and none of them really know what Keir thinks or wants. In fact most of them don’t think Keir knows what he wants.” He added: “I went in to No 10 after I saw you. It is beleaguered and bereft. It requires complete revamp and infusion of purpose and confidence to get anywhere.”
Mr McFadden, a key Starmer ally, was shown to have expressed concerned about the PM’s position during last summer’s benefit cuts revolt. He told Lord Mandelson: “Lot of manoeuvring here this week. Angela, Gordon. Doesn’t feel good for Keir.”
Lord Mandelson said ex-PM Gordon Brown of trying to undermine Mr Starmer in favour of Angela Rayner, who he described as “an instrument of destabilization”. And he said the PLP was “mutinous”, to which Mr McFadden replied: “Yes. Every meeting I have is “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”. They’re asking the wrong questions.” Mr McFadden lamented the watering down of benefit cuts and said it risked destroying the PM’s authority.
The Labour grandee also dismissed concerns from Wes Streeting about the Israel-Gaza conflict as a “mid life crisis”. Last summer, he told Mr McFadden: “By way, I received a wild long hysterical message from Wes about Israel. I pushed back. I can forward but reflects pretty badly on his maturity in my view.”
The previous day, Mr Streeting had written to Mandelson that “Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes”. But Mandelson told McFadden his behaviour was “pathetic”. He added: “I think Wes is experiencing an early mid life crisis.”
Another damning exchange with Pensions Minister Torsten Bell showed Mr Bell saying: “Everyone seems to think it’s someone else’s job to get the policy right… which is very odd.” Mandelson replied: “As the saying goes, rubbish in rubbish out…”
Lord Mandelson also spent a significant amount of time lobbying ministers and MPs to support him in a bid to become Oxford Chancellor, a post he lost out on to William Hague.
The files come at a precarious moment for the Prime Minister, who narrowly survived being ousted after Labour’s local elections drubbing last month. His future remains in doubt as rivals Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting carry out a shadow leadership contest in public.
Mr Burnham, who is widely expected to challenge the PM if he wins the Makerfield by-election, said the revelations will “further damage people’s confidence in our political system”. In a thinly-veiled swipe at Mr Starmer, he said the system “puts private vested interests above the wider public interest and concentrates too much power in too few hands”.
The mood among Labour MPs was described as “flat” yesterday by one backbencher. Another told the Mirror: “Telling us to put on a united front seems pointless when we’ve got messages from cabinet members out there for all to see saying how poor the government is. It’s just a waiting game now.”
Meanwhile one MP said: “Mandelson slagging off Wes in private WhatsApp has done wonders for his leadership aspirations!!”
Lord Mandelson initially demanded more than £500,000 as a golden goodbye when he was stripped of his role as US ambassador. He eventually settled for £75,000, which covered £40,330 as pay in lieu of notice and a severance payment of £34,670.
Downing Street demanded he repay the money or donate it to charity after further revelations about the closeness of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. But the Mirror understands that he has failed to do so.