UK Minister Admits Mandelson Messages 'Embarrassing'

(MENAFN) A senior British Cabinet minister was forced onto the defensive Tuesday, conceding that newly surfaced messages tied to Peter Mandelson's controversial ambassadorial appointment were damaging — while disclosing that key exchanges had been stored on a personal phone stolen last year.

"Look they are embarrassing, I'm not hiding from that," Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden told media, responding to reports of messages attributed to him in which he reportedly said: "Every meeting I have is who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others."

The admission came in the wake of Monday's release of more than 1,500 pages of documents connected to Mandelson's appointment as UK ambassador to the United States — believed to represent the final major tranche of records in the disclosure process.

Among the released correspondence, Mandelson is shown seeking to reassure then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy ahead of his confirmation. "I would make sure you never regret it," Mandelson wrote in a letter to Lammy, according to the newly published documents.

Separate messages from July 2025 revealed Mandelson privately disparaging Prime Minister Keir Starmer's inner circle in exchanges with McFadden, describing it as "beleaguered and bereft."

McFadden insisted he had been "very, very open" with officials about the fact that some of his communications with Mandelson resided on a personal cellphone — not a government-issued device — that was stolen last year. The disclosures also revealed that Mandelson himself "declined to comply" with a Cabinet Office request to hand over "any information held on his personal phone."

Starmer's office sought to put a positive gloss on the document dump Monday, characterizing the publication as delivering "unprecedented" transparency.

The row traces back to Starmer's decision to appoint Mandelson in December 2024, a tenure that ended abruptly nine months later after fresh revelations emerged about Mandelson's relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. An investigation published in April by The Guardian further reported that Mandelson had initially failed security vetting clearance — only for the Foreign Office to subsequently overturn that decision, paving the way for him to take up the post.

The cumulative disclosures have placed Starmer under mounting pressure to resign, with critics alleging he misled parliament by claiming "full due process" had been observed throughout Mandelson's appointment process.

MENAFN02062026000045017169ID1111199471