The Cabinet Office has released the Mandelson files in three volumes, revealing communications between Peter Mandelson and Keir Starmer regarding a meeting with John Major. These documents are expected to contain significant political implications.
Key points
Cabinet Office published the Mandelson files
Files consist of three volumes
Includes messages between Peter Mandelson and Keir Starmer
Mandelson urges Starmer to meet John Major
Significant political implications expected
Mentioned in this story
Peter MandelsonKeir StarmerJohn MajorCabinet Office
Here is an exchange of messages between Peter Mandelson and Keir Starmer before and after the 2024 election. Mandelson is urging Starmer to meet John Major.
It is on page 283 in volume 3.
Starmer/Mandelson exchanges - June 2024
Starmer/Mandelson exchanges - June 2024 Photograph: Cabinet Office
It is going to take a while for the most interesting material to appear.
A word search for Keir Starmer in volume one brings up an email from Peter Mandelson to Lord Vallance, the science minister, written in July 2024 says:
double quotation markLabour has, let’s say, two terms to succeed. So far Keir’s team has not prioritised policy (not surprising given how much else had to be re-built after Corbyn). And the No 10 policy team is not large or experienced. Pat at the Cabinet Office will have the right instincts but I am an afficionado of the Cabinet Office (I started there as Minister without Portfolio and ended there as First Secretary of State) and it is a light touch co-ordinator not a power house.
It is on page 167 of the file
If you can find interesting documents, do please flag them up BTL.
Robert Kenyon, the Reform UK candidate in Makerfield, posted this on social media about the new logo unveiled by Andy Burnham. (See .)
Q&A
What are the Mandelson files and why are they significant?
The Mandelson files are documents published by the Cabinet Office that include communications between Peter Mandelson and Keir Starmer, highlighting political strategies and discussions that could impact UK politics.
What does Peter Mandelson urge Keir Starmer to do in the files?
Peter Mandelson urges Keir Starmer to meet with John Major, as indicated in their exchange of messages found in volume 3 of the Mandelson files.
How many volumes are in the Mandelson files?
The Mandelson files consist of three volumes, detailing various communications and political exchanges.
Where can I find the Mandelson files published by the Cabinet Office?
The Mandelson files can be accessed through the official UK government website, where they are published as part of the Cabinet Office's documentation.
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double quotation markAndy wants to change Labour. I want to change Makerfield.
That’s the difference.
That prompted this reply from the Labour MP Luke Charters.
double quotation markSounds like you certainly wouldn’t change Reform, with your misogynistic and pro-Kremlin views.
That’s the difference.
For more on the Makerfield byelection, it is worth reading this thread from the More in Common pollster Luke Tryl about what he has picked up from focus groups in the constituency. Here is one of his main points.
double quotation mark5. There is going to be a lot of nose holding. Versions of “I don’t like Labour but I don’t want Reform” “If it weren’t Burnham i’d never vote Labour” “I don’t like Farage but we’ve got to get Labour out” “I’d vote Restore but they can’t win” Voting ‘against’ is now a major feature of our politics.
And this is what he says specifically about Kenyon.
double quotation mark8. Kenyon’s past comments split people, particuarly women, some say everyone says stupid things, others question if they’re real, but a sizeable group are put off by them - and in particular the failure of Kenyon to make a proper apology.
double quotation markMany said if he’d apologised properly it would matter less. Substantively the comment about abortion probably seems like it might matter more than the sexist/misogynist comments, and there a degree of ‘mind your own business’
In his Times story about the Peter Mandelson files, Matt Dathan says the documents will show that Mandelson “contacted some of Labour’s new intake of male MPs to meet up for dinner”. Dathan says Mandelson contacted ministers he knew to get phone numbers for MPs he did not know.
Dathan also quotes a minister who has seen some of the messages about to be published as saying:
double quotation markThey’re going to upset a lot of people, particularly Labour members. The content is a lot of sycophancy and fawning all over Mandelson. It’s going to be very uncomfortable about how he talks about some MPs, how he would love to speak with them and have dinner with them.
In an interview with GB News this morning, James Murray, the new health secretary, said he was not worried about his own messages to Peter Mandelson being disclosed. He said:
double quotation markI’m not concerned. There’s a couple of messages when he was standing for the … chancellor of Oxford position, but that was.
Mandelson came second from last in the election to be chancellor of Oxford. (William Hague won.) But at one point he did explore whether he would be able to combine doing the job with being ambassador to the US.
While the polling of the views of trade union members published today (see 10.53am) would appear to support claims that Labour should be moving closer to the Reform UK position on some issues, another poll published at the weekend suggests Labour should be much more worried about losing votes to the Greens.
In a post on his Comment is Freed Substack blog, Sam Freedman disclosed the results of a Convergent Opinion poll of 10,000 people who voted in the local elections that was intended to find out why they voted as they did.
It shows that 30% of people who voted Green were also open to voting Labour (they said they had considered it), but only 6% of people who voted Reform UK were.
Local election polling
Local election polling Photograph: Comment is Freed
In his commentary, Freedman says:
double quotation markAt a national level it is now well established that Labour is losing more votes to the Greens and Lib Dems than Reform. Pollsters don’t agree on how big this gap is but they do agree there is one. We also know that voters who have switched to parties on the left are more willing to consider returning that ones who’ve gone rightwards. Our poll found that 30% of voters who ended up going Green considered voting Labour, but only 6% of those who went Reform.
A political strategy [by Labour] that refuses to acknowledge this skew towards the Greens, or that tries to dismiss them as crazies, is not going to work.
The research also found that Reform UK supporters were far more likely to vote in the local elections than the supporters of other parties – which contributed to the reasons why Nigel Farage’s party did so well.
Turnout in local elections by party support
Turnout in local elections by party support Photograph: Sam Freedman
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:
double quotation markI’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”
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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:
double quotation markBanning 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 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:
double quotation markI 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:
double quotation markThe 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:
double quotation markI 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
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.”
