Police carry out search warrants in relation over Mandelson reports
Police have carried out search warrants in relation to their investigation into misconduct in public office, they said on Friday, following reports about the conduct of former UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson.
The police said they were carrying out search warrants at two addresses, one in the Wiltshire area and another in the Camden, north London.
The police added that they had not arrested the man involved in the investigation, who they said was a 72-year-old.
Key events
A man who left the London house, and got into a car, declined to comment, including on anything happening inside the property.
Here are some more photos of police appearing to search the address near Regent’s Park in London:
Vikram Dodd
It is understood Peter Mandelson was at the Camden address searched by police, and officers were able to gain entry into the second address in Wiltshire without any need to use force.
Detectives believe the searches are necessary as part of their exercise in gathering evidence, ahead of an expected interview of Mandelson to be held soon and which is expected to take place under criminal caution.
The key items detectives are looking at securing are electronic devices, namely phones, computers, USB sticks, as well as anything in writing such as documents.
Officers are understood to have arrived to carry out the searches unannounced.
What they find will determine the investigation’s next steps, and whether it is thought necessary or not to arrest the former cabinet minister.
Daniel Boffey
A general election was on the horizon and Peter Mandelson was everywhere. “He didn’t have a desk but he would dip in and out on big issues; he was always there for advice,” recalled a former Labour official of the party’s run-up to the campaign in 2024.
“He would be in and out of the Loto [leader of the opposition] office in Westminster, picking people off individually, ‘We need to chat and do this’, sort of thing.”
The Labour peer’s presence was welcomed by some, who found it reassuring to have a member of the election-winning New Labour team around, but others were notably seeking to keep a distance.
“Sue didn’t want him near anything,” said the source of Sue Gray, who was then Keir Starmer’s chief or staff and for six years before that was head of the Cabinet Office’s ethics and propriety team. “She kept trying to push him away. I think by that point, he was definitely, like, pestering for a role and wanting a role. She could probably see that all of this would happen.”
This week the prime minister, whose hands appeared to be shaking at the Commons dispatch box, apologised for “having believed Mandelson’s lies” over his relationship with the sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Two people believed to be police officers left the house in north London to collect items from their car, PA reported.
They collected a blue box and a large bag before re-entering the property near Regent’s Park in central London.
Police say 72-year-old has not been arrested and enquiries are ongoing
Police have confirmed that the searches carried out in Wiltshire and Camden are in relation to its investigation into misconduct in public office.
PA reports two people believed to be police officers arrived outside a house near Regent’s Park in central London on Friday afternoon.
One of them appeared to be wearing a small body camera. They knocked on the door and entered the house.
Deputy assistant commissioner Hayley Sewart, of the Metropolitan Police, said in a statement:
I can confirm that officers from the Met’s central specialist crime team are in the process of carrying out search warrants at two addresses, one in the Wiltshire area, and another in the Camden area.
The searches are related to an ongoing investigation into misconduct in public office offences, involving a 72-year-old man.
He has not been arrested and enquiries are ongoing.
Police carry out search warrants in relation over Mandelson reports
Police have carried out search warrants in relation to their investigation into misconduct in public office, they said on Friday, following reports about the conduct of former UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson.
The police said they were carrying out search warrants at two addresses, one in the Wiltshire area and another in the Camden, north London.
The police added that they had not arrested the man involved in the investigation, who they said was a 72-year-old.
While Keir Starmer believes the files will prove Mandelson lied during his vetting, the publication of communications with ministers and senior officials has the potential to prove embarrassing for the government.
Publication of the full tranche of documents could take some time, as parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) must review any items that the government wishes to withhold for national security reasons.
The committee has yet to set out a timetable for making its decisions on what can be released, PA reports.
The Metropolitan Police has also asked for some documents to be withheld, claiming it could jeopardise its criminal investigation into allegations Mandelson passed on market-sensitive information to Epstein when he was business secretary following the 2008 financial crisis.
The number of documents, and the sensitive nature of some of them, mean the files could be released piecemeal rather than in one large tranche.
Number of Mandelson documents could be close to 100,000 – report
The total number of government documents related to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador could be close to 100,000, the BBC reported without citing a source for the information.
The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) wrote to Keir Starmer yesterday to set out its expectations ahead of the release of the Mandelson documents.
In a communication from Lord Beamish and Jeremy Wright, the committee said it is up to the government to decide which of the documents, relating to the ambassadorial appointment, should not be published.
Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan has said Keir Starmer should resign as prime minister and called for a “renewal” of the party.
“We can’t just keep going on like this – lurching from one crisis to the next,” the MP for Poole told BBC News.
He added that he wishes to see a “renewal of the Labour party” to restart its “offer to the British public”.
Gwyn Topham
Most of England’s smart motorway schemes have proved poor or very poor value for money, according to assessments by the government agency that built them.
Official evaluations from National Highways, some of which had been held back by the Department for Transport (DfT) since completion in 2023, showed that a slew of big projects to convert the hard shoulder on the M1, M4, M6 and M25 were rated as “poor” or “very poor” value.
The AA said the long-awaited reports revealed smart motorways had been a “catastrophic waste of time, money and effort”, although the government said they showed the project could allow more vehicles to travel safely.
National Highways was given the go-ahead by the DfT to finally publish 16 reports known as “popes” (post-opening project evaluations) on Thursday. Of the 11 motorway schemes that were evaluated over a five-year period since opening and given a financial assessment, only two were rated positively.
Smart motorways, which were rolled out widely in England from 2013, were designed to increase capacity relatively cheaply, by converting the hard shoulder into a live lane and using electronic overhead signs to manage traffic and close lanes in emergencies.
More than 50 Labour MPs have urged the government to reconsider its decision not to pay compensation to so-called Waspi women in the latest sign of backbench unrest.
They were among 92 parliamentarians who signed a letter co-ordinated by Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey saying it was the “wrong decision” not to award compensation to women over pension age changes, PA reports.
The letter to work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden says:
We collectively represent millions of women born in the 1950s and express our grave disappointment that the government has once again chosen to reject compensation for the 1950s women affected by state pension age changes.
This was the wrong decision, but you have the opportunity to put this right.
The signatories included Labour MPs who have spoken out publicly about their frustrations in recent days, including Rachael Maskell, Paula Barker, Neil Duncan Jordan and John McDonnell.
Polly Toynbee
The smell of death is in the Westminster air. Labour’s King Rat Peter Mandelson has again cast his sulphurous odour of villainy around the palace, and contamination may drag a decent, well-intentioned Labour leader down with him.
That’s the tragedy. Nothing about Keir Starmer’s life purpose, attitudes, tastes, morals or values resembles Mandelson’s and his venal world of corrupted power, where mega-billions buy anyone anything. Not friends; they had nothing in common. For all Mandelson’s pedigree, reaching into the party’s past, he never seemed to have a single Labour value or egalitarian instinct. Labour was a vehicle.
But even if the men were never close, Mandelson worked to cast his mantle over Starmer’s team, just as he had exerted his malign and worldly influence on Labour for decades. Morgan McSweeney was his young protege, learning the Mandelsonian way of political cynicism; others in the cabinet, too, were surely seduced by that aura of “grownup” reckoning with the “real world”.
McSweeney was widely reported to be the one pushing Mandelson’s appointment to Washington, a clever idea to plant a man without scruples to schmooze a president with even fewer. Clever, that is, if you can skip past the minor irrelevance of his intimate friendship with a man who trafficked young girls for influence with the mighty.
All the great and bad whose names tumble out of the newly released files – Noam Chomsky! – shrugged it off. Somehow, the grooming gangs of Rotherham cause more visceral disgust and outcry than exploitation of these equally vulnerable victims procured for the lusts of the wealthy.
Boss of lobbying firm founded with Mandelson quits after Epstein revelations
Ben Quinn
A former No 10 aide has quit as chief executive of the influential lobbying firm he co-founded with Peter Mandelson following revelations from the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Ben Wegg-Prosser stepped down on Friday as the head of Global Counsel after emails revealed the extent to which he and Mandselson had involved the convicted child sex offender when they were setting up the company in 2010.
The fallout from the release of the files in the US has triggered a crisis at Global Counsel, which has had close ties to Labour and lobbied the government on behalf of clients including the controversial tech firm and government contractor Palantir.
The departure of Wegg-Prosser, formerly Tony Blair’s director of strategic communications at No 10, was communicated to clients on Friday by the firm as it fought to stave off damage from the scandal. One major client, Barclays, had already cut ties.
The companay also told clients on Friday that it had reached an agreement for the divestment of Mandelson’s shares in the company and that the transaction would be completed later in the day subject to approvals. The peer left the company’s board two years ago when a company owned by the former Barack Obama adviser Jim Messina invested in it, but retained shares.
“The completion of this transaction will bring to an end any connection between Global Counsel and Peter Mandelson,” said chair Archie Norman.
Just a reminder that a Downing Street spokesperson confirmed last night that Keir Starmer has full confidence in his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney.
There have been calls by backbenchers for the sacking of McSweeney, whom many blame for his ally Peter Mandelson’s appointment to the ambassadorship.
Asked if the prime minister agreed with calls for his chief of staff to be sacked, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said:
It’s full confidence.
There have been renewed calls today for McSweeney to go, as Starmer continues to face the fallout of the Mandelson scandal.
The Scottish government has announced plans for a housing grant scheme in rural areas, PA reports.
First minister John Swinney set out the Rural and Island Housing Grant Scheme at the National Farmers Union Scotland conference on Friday.
He said the scheme, which will have an indicative budget of up to £20m over four years, will help ensure people can “put down roots in rural and island Scotland, or move back to the communities where they grew up”.
He added:
It will build on our positive track record in affordable housing – with 10% of homes being delivered in rural and island communities – and underpin our work supporting the development of the new housing agency, More Homes Scotland.
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