According to the documents, Keir Starmer’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell expressed concerns about the appointment of Peter Mandelson with Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s former chief of staff.He said he believed Starmer “may have had a couple of political conversations” about Mandelson’s links to the disgraced financier.Powell also claimed Philip Barton, the most senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, also “had reservations around the appointment”, the BBC reported.The first set of documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US was released by the government today.MPs ordered the government last month to release tens of thousands of documents relating to the 2024 appointment after questions over how Mandelson was vetted and what was known about his links to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

A due diligence report by the Cabinet Office on Mandelson’s appointment found there was a “general reputational risk” over his relationship with Epstein.The due diligence report drawn up in December 2024 before his appointment noted a series of reports detailing his links with Epstein, including that Mandelson had “reportedly stayed in Epstein’s house while he was in jail in June 2009”.Mandelson was offered a highly classified briefing from the Foreign Office as US ambassador before he finished the formal vetting process.The documents suggest that the Foreign Office may have begun to brief Mandelson on classified information after his appointment – but before he was formally vetted at the highest levels.Mandelson asked for more than £500,000 severance pay but got £75,000.

The documents state that negotiations began with Mandelson requesting a pay out for the remainder of his four-year salary costs of the fixed term appointment,“This would have amounted to £547,201,”Chief secretary to the prime minister, Darren Jones, said Mandelson “should never have been appointed”,But in his defence of Keir Starmer, he said the Cabinet Office due diligence report “did not expose the depth and extent” of Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein,Jones described Mandelson’s request for more than £500,000 severance pay as “inappropriate and unacceptable”.

He told the Commons that the final pay out that was agreed “was to avoid even higher further costs involving a drawn-out legal claim at the employment tribunal”.The Conservatives claimed the prime minister “knew all he needed to know” when he appointed Mandelson, describing it as a “bad choice”.Shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart, who delivered the party’s response to Jones’s statement in the Commons, said it was a choice that “we can now read about in black and white” in the documents.National security adviser Jonathan Powell found the appointment process “weirdly rushed”.The documents summarised a phone call between Powell and Mike Ostheimer, the general counsel to the prime minister, on 12 September 2025, in which “Jonathan Powell found the appointment process unusual of Lord Mandelson weirdly rushed”.

Mandelson suggested using Nigel Farage to “better UK connections with the Trump administration”.Mandelson was quoted in the documents as saying: “He’s [Farage] a bridgehead, both to President Trump and to Elon Musk and others … National interest is served in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways.”According to the documents, Jonathan Powell expressed concerns about the appointment of Peter Mandelson with Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s former chief of staff.He said he believed Starmer “may have had a couple of political conversations” about Mandelson’s links to the disgraced financier.Powell also claimed Philip Barton, the most senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, also “had reservations around the appointment”, the BBC reported.

Chief secretary to the prime minister, Darren Jones, said the government hopes all of the files requested into Mandelson will be released in one more final batch,He told the BBC the remainder still have to go through checks with the Metropolitan Police and the Intelligence and Security Committee, but they are working as “quickly as we can”,Four months after Peter Mandelson was sacked as UK ambassador to Washington over his links with Jeffrey Epstein, he sat down for a primetime BBC interview,A less hubristic individual would have long since slunk away into the shadows,But despite all the condemnation and humiliation surrounding his departure, Mandelson seemed intent on maintaining a public profile.

“Who knows what’s next?” he told Laura Kuenssberg.“I don’t know what’s next.I’m not going to disappear and hide – that’s not me”.For some inside Downing Street, those words sounded as a warning – or even a threat.Peter Mandelson still knows where the bodies are buried and could cause the government – and Keir Starmer in particular – a whole lot of trouble.

A man scorned, and all that.But even were he to take a vow of silence – and he does at least appear to be keeping a lower profile since the police launched their investigation – the prime minister’s decision to appoint Mandelson in the first place is still causing problems that could yet turn into another political storm.The release of the first tranche of Mandelson documents – only agreed after the Conservatives forced the government’s hand – was always going to be a risky moment for Starmer, as it once again turned the spotlight on his decisions.Mandelson doesn’t come out of it well.One of the most eye-catching – but perhaps unsurprising – revelations was that the former ambassador was offered a severance payment of £75,000, after initially asking the Foreign Office to pay him more than £500,000.

There is little from Mandelson himself in the documents beyond his request that he be allowed to arrive back in the UK “with the maximum dignity and minimum media intrusion”.Again, unsurprising for a man so focused on his own reputation.The real danger for Starmer is not how Mandelson emerges from the documents, but that the focus is once again on his own decisions.The Cabinet Office’s due diligence report was littered with red flags about the risks of the appointment.A Labour MP has called for an urgent crackdown on “finfluencers”, who use social media to promote incorrect financial advice.

Stella Creasy pressed the Government to ban the promotion of certain tax avoidance arrangements by financial influencers as part of its Finance (No 2) Bill.She raised the case of army reservist Danny Butcher, 37, who killed himself after paying £13,000 for training with a company which promised financial freedom.Creasy said: “We don’t need to warn our constituents about the danger of taking advice online.We need to collectively act to stop this before it gets any worse.“New clause four would allow us to be clear that the powers in this Bill also apply to these con artists.

”Creasy did not push her amendment to a vote, instead withdrawing it.The Bill, which places the Chancellor’s budget plans on the statute book, was passed in the Commons by 292 votes to 161, majority 131.At third reading, Treasury minister Lucy Rigby said: “The measures in this Bill contain the right choices for the public finances, the right choices on investment, the right choices for businesses and for working people, the right choices for our public services, and the right choices for Britain.”One of Britain’s largest trade unions is cutting membership fees to Labour by more than half a million pounds over the Birmingham bin strike.The move by Unite, one of the three largest unions affiliated to Labour and a key financial donor to it, comes ahead of a conference next year when members will consider whether they want to maintain ties to the party.

Unite announced the 40% cut, which will cost Labour as much as £580,000, on the anniversary of the bin strike in Birmingham, in which workers have been pitted against a city council controlled by the party.The union’s general secretary, Sharon Graham said: “Unite members are coming to the end of the line as far as Labour is concerned.“Workers are scratching their heads asking whose side are Labour on, who do they really represent, because it certainly isn’t workers.”Talks between Unite and the Birmingham city council have failed to reach a solution since the start of the dispute over the local authority’s decision to remove Waste Recycling and Collection Officer posts, and negotiations.Chief secretary to the prime minister, Darren Jones, said the government hopes all of the files requested into Mandelson will be released in one more final batch.

He told the BBC the remainder still have to go through checks with the Metropolitan police and the intelligence and security committee, but they are working as “quickly as we can”.When asked if he exaggerated the figure Mandelson demanded for a severance payout, Jones added “the documents speak for themselves”.Earlier, Jones, told the Commons that Mandelson “should never have been appointed”.But in his defence of Keir Starmer, he said the Cabinet Office due diligence report “did not expose the depth and extent” of Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein.Kemi Badenoch has called for Labour MP to potentially remove Keir Starmer as their leader.

The Tory leader said: “He is held hostage by his backbenchers,“And they can see right now that as much as the prime minister wanted to make this about Peter Mandelson, this is really about Keir Starmer being dishonest with them, with the country, with parliament, about what he knew,“There are not enough Conservative MPs to remove the prime minister - he won a landslide,“I think Labour MPs now need to consider their conscience and their position and ask if this man is fit to run our country,”The Tories have called on the government to demand Lord Mandelson return his severance pay and “release the files in full” following the publication of the first tranche.

Shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Alex Burghart MP said: “The lapse in the prime minister’s judgment knows no bounds.Allowing a scandal-ridden former Minister access to highly sensitive information before proper clearance is completely careless.“Even more troubling is that this happened while the government was aware of Mandelson’s longstanding, close connections to Epstein.“Labour must come clean about what ministers knew, when they knew it, and why national security safeguards appear to have been treated so casually.“The government must now release the files in full and demand Mandelson return his severance to the public purse.

”According to the documents, Keir Starmer’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell expressed concerns about the appointment of Peter Mandelson with Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s former chief of staff.He said he believed Starmer “may have had a couple of political conversations” about Mandelson’s links to the disgraced financier.Powell also claimed Philip Barton, the most senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, also “had reservations around the appointment”, the BBC reported.We now have the first tranche of documents promised by the government connected to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Washington – 147 pages from a mass of information believed to total in the hundreds of thousands.Mandelson has previously denied any wrongdoing, and his lawyers have said that he does not intend to make any further statement at this time.

Here is what we have learned from the files – and what we do not yet know,1,Mandelson played hardball over his severance payoutThe individual’s contract states an entitlement to three months’ notice or payment in lieu of notice,On advice of his counsel, the individual has stated this is insufficient, particularly as they believe the actions of HMG have permanently damaged their employability,There has already been some controversy about the fact that Mandelson was given a £75,000 payoff.

The documents show that he sought much more – £547,000, which would have been the total pay he was due for the entire ambassadorial contract.Mandelson had, they added, sought advice from a KC specialising in employment law.While ministers can be instantly dismissed if they lose the confidence of the prime minister, as a civil servant, Mandelson was entitled to three months’ notice payment, given he had not done anything wrong in the job itself.This notice totalled £40,330, to which the Foreign Office added a “termination payment” of £34,670.Why? Darren Jones, the chief secretary to Downing Street, argued in the Commons that this was to save money, as if Mandelson had pursued his case at an employment tribunal, it would have cost much more.

2.Starmer knew about Mandelson’s post-jail links to EpsteinAfter Epstein was first convicted of procuring an underage girl in 2008, their relationship continued across 2009-2011, beginning when Lord Mandelson was business minister and continuing after the end of the Labour government.This aspect of the documents is unsurprising, not least as Starmer said last month that he knew before appointing Mandelson that his choice for US ambassador had maintained some contact with Epstein even after the disgraced financier had been jailed in 2008.It is nonetheless striking to see it laid out in black and white in a document for Starmer setting out the “due diligence” carried out on Mandelson.There was, the report said, “general reputational risk” from the links to Epstein, and other aspects of Mandelson’s life, including his business links and the fact he had been twice forced to resign as a government minister.

The first set of documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US was released by the government today.MPs ordered the government last month to release tens of thousands of documents relating to the 2024 appointment after questions over how Mandelson was vetted and what was known about his links to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.A due diligence report by the Cabinet Office on Mandelson’s appointment found there was a “general reputational risk” over his relationship with Epstein.The due diligence report drawn up in December 2024 before his appointment noted a series of reports detailing his links with Epstein, including that Mandelson had “reportedly stayed in Epstein’s house while he was in jail in June 2009”.Mandelson was offered a highly classified briefing from the Foreign Office as US ambassador before he finished the formal vetting process.

The documents suggest that the Foreign Office may have begun to brief Mandelson on classified information after his appointment – but before he was formally vetted at the highest levels.Mandelson asked for more than £500,000 severance pay but got £75,000.The documents state that negotiations began with Mandelson requesting a pay out for the remainder of his four-year salary costs of the fixed term appointment.“This would have amounted to £547,201.”Chief secretary to the prime minister, Darren Jones, said Mandelson “should never have been appointed”.

But in his defence of Keir Starmer, he said the Cabinet Office due diligence report “did not expose the depth and extent” of Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein.Jones described Mandelson’s request for more than £500,000 severance pay as “inappropriate and unacceptable”.He told the Commons that the final pay out that was agreed “was to avoid even higher further costs involving a drawn-out legal claim at the employment tribunal”.The Conservatives claimed the prime minister “knew all he needed to know” when he appointed Mandelson, describing it as a “bad choice”.Shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart, who delivered the party’s response to Jones’s statement in the Commons, said it was a choice that “we can now read about in black and white” in the documents.

National security adviser Jonathan Powell found the appointment process “weirdly rushed”.The documents summarised a phone call between Powell and Mike Ostheimer, the general counsel to the prime minister, on 12 September 2025, in which “Jonathan Powell found the appointment process unusual of Lord Mandelson weirdly rushed”.Mandelson suggested using Nigel Farage to “better UK connections with the Trump administration”.Mandelson was quoted in the documents as saying: “He’s [Farage] a bridgehead, both to President Trump and to Elon Musk and others … National interest is served in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways.”