The Huffington Post
Keir Starmer and Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence in February last year. Peter Mandelson launched a brutal attack on Keir Starmer’s No.10 operation in private messages with a senior cabinet minister. The former US ambassador told Pat McFadden that Downing Street was “beleaguered and bereft” under the PM’s leadership. He also said the government lacked “verve” and needed to act “in a more Trumpian risk-taking and dare-devil way” to turn around Labour’s fortunes. The disgraced ex-Labour peer’s stinging criticisms were revealed in nearly 1,500 pages of documents released by the government into his appointment as the UK’s ambassador to Washington at the end of 2024. In one message to McFadden, who was Cabinet Office minister at the time and one of the PM’s closest allies, on July 30 last year, Mandelson said: “I went in to No.10 after I saw you. It is beleaguered and bereft. “It requires complete revamp and infusion of purpose and confidence to get anywhere.” That came two months after Mandelson had also condemned the government’s performance in the wake of the local elections in May last year. He said: “The problem is the government doesn’t give a sense of crusading to turn round and change Britain. That’s what I mean by panache, verve. “It does start right from the top, I am afraid, but you must all contribute more to it by breaking out of the Whitehall system and mould and appearing less like business as usual conventional ministers and, dare I say it, behaving in a more Trumpian risk-taking and dare-devil way. “At the moment ministers seem to be looking more to the Whitehall machine and the party base than to the public who are crying out for leadership.” Subscribe to Commons People , the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
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