The first batch of the Mandelson files has finally been released – but even though there's still more to come, there are already serious questions for the prime minister.
What was the vetting process before Mandelson's appointment as the UK's ambassador to the United States?
How much was known about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein? And could more have been done to prevent a five-figure payout following his downfall?
Niall is joined by Sky News political correspondent Rob Powell, who has been going through the files.
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Responding to the Mandelson files, Kemi Badenoch has called for Labour MP to potentially remove Sir Keir Starmer as their leader.
This would require dozens of backbenchers nominating a challenger to run against him.
\"He is held hostage by his backbenchers,\" Badenoch says of the PM.
\"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.\"
Pushed, she says Labour MPs need to \"consider whether this is someone who is fit to run our country\".
The Mandelson files released today gives us an outline into the timeline of the disgraced former ambassador's sacking.
The sequence of events was as follows:
Digging into the details a little shows us how Mandelson reacted to getting removed from his job.
For example, on 17 September 2025, Mandelson said to the Foreign Office: \"My chief concern is leaving the US and arriving in the UK with the maximum dignity and\nminimum media intrusion which I think is to the advantage of all concerned, not least\nbecause I remain a crown/civil servant and expect to be treated as such.
\"How is the FCDO\nassisting in this?\"
He also mentions that his employment lawyers will be looking at the terms of his sacking.
It has already been mentioned and reported that Mandelson engaged employment lawyers after his sacking.
He also wanted his full four year salary of around £500k paid, but in the end agreed to take £75k.
An email sent on 23 September 2025 sent from the chief people officer in Foreign Office to other bureaucrats, seems to suggest they were worried what Mandelson might say publicly.
This was as discussions on the settlement were ongoing.
The Foreign Office official wrote \"There is a potential, that absent a positive indication, Peter goes public on\nsome of his claims so there is some urgency.\"
In September last year, after Lord Mandelson's sacking as the UK's ambassador to the US, Sky's political editor Beth Rigby asked Donald Trump for his view on the situation.
The US president, who was standing beside Sir Keir Starmer at a joint press conference, replied: \"I don't know him actually.
\"I had heard that [about his sacking], and maybe the prime minister would be better speaking on that, it's a choice he made, and I don't know.\"
Awkward?
Well... a little for Mandelson, who met Trump at the White House months earlier in May - and even received a compliment from the US president on his accent.
You can watch that video here:
One issue that is emerging from the Mandelson files is the timeline around when the former ambassador started getting briefed on sensitive information relative to his vetting.
In an email sent by a civil servant on 23 December 2024, Mandelson is told he needs to start going through the \"vetting process\" to become ambassador.
However, it then states that Mandelson will start getting briefed from 6 January onwards - \"including at higher tiers\".
An official offer of employment was sent to Mandelson on 30 January 2025.
This document - sent weeks after the higher tier briefings were set to start - confirms that his vetting has been passed and is valid until 29 January 2030.
A subsequent letter, sent 4 February 2025 - almost a month after the higher briefings started - tells Mandelson he now needs to apply for a stricter level of vetting.
This is DV+STRAP, compared to just DV.
DV means developed vetting, and STRAP is a reference to a codeword level clearance.
Peter Mandelson remained on full pay for over a month after he was sacked as UK ambassador to the US.
Sir Keir Starmer sacked Lord Mandelson on 11 September last year, after further details about the nature of his relationship with the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein were revealed.
But the settlement for the formal end of his employment wasn't agreed until 16 October, over a month later.
An email from the Foreign Office's chief civil servant on 6 October said: \"Lord Mandelson remains employed by the Department on full pay.\"
His salary was £153,000 a year.
He however lost his overseas living allowances from 18 September, after he moved out of the ambassador's official residence in Washington.
Those allowances were worth £27,252 a year.
Lord Mandelson didn't serve a full year in post, so wouldn't have been paid those full amounts.
Peter Mandelson, 72, is no stranger to political scandal after a long political career.
He is known as the Prince of Darkness from his days as New Labour's spin doctor - a sign of how divisive his political career has been.
He began his time in government in 1985, where he became the Labour Party's director of communications under then leader Neil Kinnock.
In 1990, he swapped the backrooms of politics for the Commons, being selected to stand to be the MP for Hartlepool, then a safe seat.
Time in parliament:
After Labour left power in 2010, Mandelson co-founded a lobbying firm that provided advice for corporate strategists, and was accused of having a conflict of interest due to his role in the Lords.
He spoke out against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, unsuccessfully campaigned for the UK to remain in the EU and failed to get elected as director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Last December, Sir Keir Starmer appointed Mandelson to be the ambassador to the US, a role he took on in February last year, and was sacked from in September over his links to Jeffrey Epstein.
He was the first political rather than diplomatic appointment to Washington since Peter Jay in 1977.
Despite this, Mandelson's appointment was not a total surprise, as he had been seen by insiders as the clear favourite on a shortlist of four.
Famously, Sir Tony Blair said in 1996 that his \"project will be complete when the Labour Party learns to love Peter Mandelson\" - something that it now seems will forever be incomplete.
The ultimate climax and downfall of Peter Mandelson came at the start of February this year, when millions more of the Epstein files were released.
It was after this that Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips said on air that his \"friend\" Mandelson was finished.
You can watch that video here:
Within a month Mandelson had been arrested and released.
Emails sent on 4 February of this year show that the civil service were still concerned about Mandelson.
In a chain discussing publicising Mandelson's financial settlement figure, Ailsa Terry, a private secretary in Downing Street said: \"It would also be great to know that there has been a welfare check and to do one\neach day if that’s OK for a while.\"
The document showing advice that was given to the prime minister over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as the UK's ambassador to the US reveals links to Russia.
A section titled \"internet searches\" highlights a Daily Mail article, which notes that Mandelson served as a non-executive director of the Russian conglomerate Sistema.
It is the majority shareholder of RTI, a defence technology company, which produced radar and satellite communications for Russia's land-based missile early warning system.
Its chairman was Yevgeny Primakov, an ally of Vladimir Putin and former Russian prime minister.
Sir Keir Starmer was told Mandelson remained on the board until June 2017, long after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.
","skyPostType":"post-breaking","skyIconType":"undefined","skyIconName":"breaking-news"},"importance":1,"updated":1773244411},{"id":11250551,"authorName":"James Robinson","created":1773243674,"title":"Mandelson should donate payout, says minister","content":{"html":"In his speech in the Commons this afternoon, chief secretary to the prime minister told MPs he believed Peter Mandelson should donate his payout to charity.
The documents today confirm the disgraced ambassador initially demanded more than half a million pounds - his full four year salary - when sacked.
However, he accepted a roughly £75,000 packaged that included three months of severance and a termination payment.
Jones said: \"On the question of severance - as I say, the government, would not have wanted to give £1 to Peter Mandelson, but it was the quickest way to remove Peter Mandelson as ambassador and a member of the civil service.
\"And as the leader of the Liberal Democrat says, and the government agrees with him, the honourable thing to do would be to donate that money to an appropriate charity.\"
Sir Ed Davey called on Mandelson to \"donate any severance payment he received in full to charity\".
Zack Polanski is the latest political leader to weigh in after the release of the first tranche of files relating to Peter Mandelson's appointment as US ambassador.
The Green Party leader says: \"Starmer knew exactly the choice he was making when he appointed him. He has to go.\"
Part of the bundle of documents released today is the farewell letter Peter Mandelson wrote to embassy staff after his sacking.
The letter includes notes to staff for working hard and saying what a privilege it was to be the UK's ambassador to the US.
On the specifics of his sacking, Mandelson claims the \"circumstances\" are ones he \"deeply\" regrets, and he continues \"to feel utterly awful about my association with Epstein twenty years ago and the plight of victims\".
This frames their relationship as having finished in 2005, but it continued for many years after, including after Epstein's stint in prison and many of the claims about him.
Mandelson adds that he has \"no alternative to accepting\" being sacked by the prime minister.
He signs off the document from himself, his husband Reinaldo, and their dog Jock.
Deputy political editor Sam Coates has been going through the files and showcasing the key lines to emerge.
It's just shy of 150 pages, he explains, and the document gives an insight into \"so much of what Keir Starmer knew in advance\".
Sam highlights a due diligence document that was handed to Starmer just before the appointment.
\"You can see the risks that were raised by various figures... it's not until the second page we get to the relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.\"
He says the findings will be \"particularly embarrassing\" for the government - watch his analysis of it all below...
We're now hearing from Donald McIntyre, the author of Peter Mandelson's biography.
He says the former US ambassador clearly \"prided himself on his ability to get on with Donald Trump\", and explains that there \"two overlapping issues for Starmer\".
\"One is that, obviously the Cabinet Office due diligence report in the main states what we basically already knew, namely that Keir Starmer appointed Peter Mandelson in full knowledge that his relationship with Epstein had continued after Epstein's first conviction in 2008,\" McIntyre says
\"But secondly... Starmer is basically saying, okay, I did know that, but I didn't know about the depth of the relationship and he lied persistently about that.
\"Now, I mean, the nature of those lies, hasn't really been exposed ostensibly because the Metropolitan Police have put restrictions on the files that can be released.\"
McIntyre questions whether Starmer asked Mandelson what else there was about this relationship that might be damaging.
\"Quite honestly, there's no evidence that he did,\" he adds.
\"It seems that he left it to Morgan McSweeney, who was a close ally of Peter Mandelson.\"
The prime minister was informed that Peter Mandelson continued his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein beyond his first child sex conviction, and until at least 2011.
In the \"due diligence\" document given to Sir Keir Starmer in November 2024, it noted that: \"After Epstein was first convicted of procuring an underage girl in 2008, their\nrelationship continued across 2009-2011, beginning when Lord Mandelson\nwas Business Minister and continuing after the end of the Labour\ngovernment.
\"Mandelson reportedly stayed in Epstein's House while he was\nin jail in June 2009.\"
It also noted that Mandelson \"agreed to be a 'founding citizen' of an ocean conservation group founded by Ghislaine Maxwell, and funded by Epstein\", which it noted took place in 2014.
It means Starmer was warned that Mandelson had a personal relationship with Epstein, a padeophile financier, until at least 2011 - and decided to appoint him anyway.
","skyPostType":"post-breaking","skyIconType":"undefined","skyIconName":"breaking-news"},"importance":1,"updated":1773241820},{"id":11250277,"authorName":"James Robinson","created":1773241392,"title":"PM orders rapid review into anti-lobbying rules","content":{"html":"In the wake of the Peter Mandelson scandal, Sir Keir Starmer has ordered a review into anti-lobbying and disclosure rules.
This was done via a letter to Doug Chalmers, the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
The terms of reference of the review states: \"It is recognised that the vast majority of public servants, whether officials\nor elected members, come to serve the public, not themselves.
\"However, whilst the current rules work in the majority of cases, recent\nevents have shown that bad actors can nonetheless evade them.
\"Issues\nraised include privileged access to senior decision makers, transparency\naround lobbying, and whether the current system of government\ndisclosures reveals enough about who is engaging with government, on\nwhat basis, and for what purpose.
\"We must be able to ensure that our standards system guarantees the highest\nstandards in public life, while ensuring there are consequences when these\nstandards are not upheld.\"
The review will examine of if the current system of declaration of interests is fit for purpose for ministers and senior government officials.
It will also look at whether the arrangements for transparency around lobbying are sufficient, and if the rules around appointments are good enough - especially when it comes to \"improper access to,\nand influence within, government\".
Starmer wants to see the report by May of this year - a very fast turn around for Westminster reviews.
Sir Keir Starmer was warned that \"if anything goes wrong, you could be more exposed\" by pushing ahead with the decision to appoint a political appointee to Washington DC.
In a note from November 2024 detailing then cabinet secretary Simon Case's advice on the appointment, he weighed up the benefits of making the US ambassador an \"official appointment\" versus a \"political appointment\".
Under the latter section, the then cabinet secretary remarked a political appointment would ensure \"a strong connection with the PM\" and enable the ambassador to \"operate at a more political level and engage differently across the US system\".
But Case added: \"If anything goes wrong, you could be more exposed as the individual is more connected to you personally.\"
The advice was given to the PM before he announced Mandelson's appointment the following month.
Further down, Case explains the different options on how the PM could announce the appointment, and the merits or otherwise of doing so before and after the new year.
He then added: \"We will need to commission a full comms and handling plan given the media scrutiny of this appointment to date, perceptions about this and other recent appointments and the role of the civil service, and levels of interest in UK-US relations as we approach the incoming Trump administration.\"
","skyPostType":"post-breaking","skyIconType":"undefined","skyIconName":"breaking-news"},"importance":1,"updated":1773242649},{"id":11250242,"authorName":"James Robinson","created":1773241031,"title":"Badenoch calls Starmer's judgement 'shocking'","content":{"html":"Kemi Badenoch has given her first reaction to the Mandelson files, warning that she believes it shows Sir Keir Starmer's judgement is \"shocking\".
The leader of the Conservatives wrote: \"Mandelson reportedly leaked sensitive government documents.
\"Starmer knew Mandelson had stayed close friends with Epstein after the conviction for child prostitution, but made him Ambassador anyway.
\"Now we see he paid Mandelson almost £80k of our money. His judgment is shocking.\"
Mandelson denies all wrongdoing. He was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, and remains under criminal investigation by the Metropolitan Police.
The government has since admitted it was a mistake to appoint Mandelson as US ambassador in December 2024.
The documents reveal the Labour peer originally requested a pay out of more than half a million pounds - but this was rejected.
The Mandelson files state that \"official records\" of a meeting between former prime minister Sir Tony Blair and the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, \"facilitated by Mandelson\", would be made public.
In the \"due dilience\" document drawn up on Peter Mandelson in Decemeber 2024, there is a section about the Labour peer's links to Epstein.
But it also notes within that: \"The Cabinet Office holds official records that are likely to be released by the National Archives early next year, which relate to a Tony Blair meeting with Epstein that was facilitated by Mandelson\".
It is not clear from that document when this meeting took place.
However, representatives for Blair say it happened in Downing Street in 2002, that it lasted less than 30 minutes, and the pair discussed US and UK politics.
They said: \"He never met or engaged with him subsequently. This was, of course, long before his crimes were known of and his subsequent conviction.\"
Lord Mandelson suggested that the prime minister could use Nigel Farage as a way to \"better UK connections with the Trump administration\".
In the \"due diligence checklist\" compiled on Mandelson and sent to the prime minister on 4 December 2024, it notes beneath questions about the peer's relationship with Epstein: \"Has suggested using Nigel Farage to better UK connections with the Trump administration\".
Under this it adds: \"Mandelson quoted saying of Farage, contrary to UKG (UK government) policy: 'You can't ignore him, he's an elected member of parliament. He's a public figure. He's a bridgehead, both to President Trump and to Elon Musk and others...
\"'National interest is served in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways.'\"
It also noted Mandelson was \"seen as an advocate for closer UK-China relations\", citing a speech at the University of Hong Kong and calls for \"closer engagement with China\".
","skyPostType":"post-breaking","skyIconType":"undefined","skyIconName":"breaking-news"},"importance":1,"updated":1773240346}],"hasMore":true}}