Peter Mandelson said the UK government would “never regret” appointing him as Britain’s ambassador to the US, a note published alongside thousands of documents about the posting has revealed.
The second tranche of documents relating to Keir Starmer’s decision to give the prestigious Washington job to Mandelson rather than a career diplomat were released by the UK government on Monday afternoon.
Mandelson also apparently “declined to comply” with a request to hand over his personal phone and allow the UK government to publish WhatsApp messages and other information related to his appointment, the documents showed.
Ahead of their publication, the British prime minister’s official spokesman described the sweeping whole of UK government effort to publish the documents as an “unprecedented piece of Government transparency”.
Ministers were braced for embarrassing revelations ahead of the publication of the files, which include thousands of previously private WhatsApp messages exchanged between figures at the top of UK government.