Tories accuse Starmer of not revealing all his Mandelson messages – UK politics live

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart says it ‘beggars belief’ there were not more exchanges between Mandelson and the PM

Good morning. Keir Starmer is chairing cabinet today as Labour MPs mull over the coverage of the Peter Mandelson files. In terms of revelations relating to Mandelson himself, the impact is probably not as bad as many MPs feared; Politico quotes one official as saying the mood last night was at the “top end” of expectations. Here is our main story about the data release, by Henry Dyer and Pippa Crear.

There will be more coverage today.

There’s a lot of stuff that’s missing. Anybody who’s looked at these 1,500 pages will see acres and acres of white space, these constellations of asterisks, huge amounts of redactions.

Now, some of that is fine because it’s national security issues, our relationship with the Americans.

It beggars belief that there were so few exchanges between Mandelson and the prime minister. There’s almost nothing in the record.

So either this stuff is being deliberately withheld or it’s been deleted.

Continue reading...