Mandelson files: What you need to know

The government has published more than 1,000 pages of documents about Lord Mandelson's stint as the UK's ambassador to the US.

It comes after MPs voted to force the release of documents about his appointment to the job, from which he was sacked last year following revelations about the extent of his relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The release, split into three volumes, cost over £1m to assemble and is more than 10 times the size of first batch of files released in March.

The documents are still being digested across Westminster. Here is a summary of the key points to have emerged so far.

The document dump contains hundreds of internal emails between officials, as well as hundreds of messages between the peer and government ministers across 56 separate WhatsApp conversations.

Taken together, they give a rare level of insight into the workings of government.

Some emails, for example, show officials were initially unsure about whether Lord Mandelson needed to undergo so-called developed vetting for his security clearance. They eventually decided he did.

Others lay bare the scramble to complete the vetting process as quickly as possible, amid what one official describes as "quite a bit of senior interest" in how quickly the case was progressing.

There are details of diplomatic steps taken to win over US President Donald Trump, including a plan to present him with a mock red box, the iconic briefcase used by British government ministers, which never saw the light of day.

Ministers' messages to the peer also highlight their private frustrations with life inside Sir Keir Starmer's government.

In one WhatsApp exchange, then cabinet minister Pat McFadden reveals his annoyance that meetings are dominated by "who can we tax in order to pay benefits".

In another, Work and Pensions Minister Torsten Bell describes the process of government as "messy", and complains that "everyone seems to think it's someone else's job to get the policy right".

The messages also show what Lord Mandelson, a grandee of the New Labour years, thought about the Starmer government after Labour's return to power in 2024.

In an exchange with McFadden in May 2025, Mandelson wrote that "Keir lacks verve as does the Cabinet as a whole."

In a later conversation, in July 2025, the peer described the No 10 operation as "beleaguered and bereft" and in need of a "complete revamp".

Lord Mandelson suggests the team around the prime minister do not know what Sir Keir "thinks or wants", before adding: "In fact most of them don't think Keir knows what he wants".

There are also details of the peer's views on individual policy areas, including on the now-implemented plan to levy VAT on private school fees, which he describes as "probably unwise".

The government said around 300 documents were sent to Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee to get their approval for redaction, adding that some documents were de-classified so they could be published.

The motion forcing the release of the documents allowed for them to be blanked out for reasons of national security, or to protect the UK's diplomatic relations.

But the release specifies that some other information has been withheld - such as the identities of junior civil servants, or data judged by the government to be "commercially sensitive".

It means that some of parts of the document release are hard to decipher, with key passages within messages, or entire exchanges, redacted.

The government says it contacted Lord Mandelson via his solicitors to request information held on his personal phone, but the peer "declined to comply" with the request, and it does not have powers to force him to do so.

Other documents have been held back at the request of the Metropolitan Police, who are investigating the peer over allegations of misconduct in public office. Lord Mandelson has denied wrongdoing.