Mandelson vs the Met: What the hell just happened?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a dramatic statement to MPs this morning, Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle revealed that he had felt "duty-bound" to report to the police what he had heard on a recent trip to the British Virgin Islands - that Peter Mandelson was due to head to the island. It was that tip off which led to Mandelson being arrested and questioned by the Met on Monday, and an allegation that has been called "baseless" by our former ambassador to the Washington.
Why did Mandelson point the finger at a different parliamentarian for his arrest? Why did ugly scenes at PMQs follow? And is it undermining Labour's campaign in the Gorton and Denton by-election?
Later, we speak to justice minister Sarah Sackman about the "courts blitz" announced by the government, that by-election, and Peter Mandelson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.0 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.0 | I actually think, if I was advising Peter Mandelson, I think a period of silence, whilst the investigation takes place, might be wise. |
| 0:20.5 | So Peter Mandelson shut up. |
| 0:22.6 | Yeah. Shut up, not least because it's important that the investigation happens |
| 0:29.6 | and if there are criminal charges to be brought, they should be brought. |
| 0:32.6 | That is Sarah Sackman, the Justice Minister, telling Peter Mandelson to shut his mouth. This comes after we |
| 0:40.8 | revealed on the newsagents yesterday that at four o'clock in the morning, he had been texting people |
| 0:46.5 | saying he'd been wrongly arrested because there was an agreement in place, and it was all the |
| 0:51.8 | fault of the Lord's Speaker, the Speaker of the House of Lords. |
| 0:56.1 | Well, the Lord's Speaker's Office vehemently denied his involvement to us. But mid-morning, |
| 1:02.1 | the plot thickened when the Common Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, admitted he had tipped off police. |
| 1:10.1 | So what the hell is going on here? Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:18.8 | The news agents. It's John. It's Emily. It's Lewis. And you'll hear more of Sarah Sackman, |
| 1:25.1 | who we heard in that clip at the beginning, later in the podcast, talking about some of the justice changes to the courts that the government is hoping it can |
| 1:32.8 | make if it can see off backbench rebellions on that. We've got to start, though, with what |
| 1:38.4 | I want to call a bonkers 24 hours, where at 4 o'clock in the morning after Peter Mandelson has been driven home |
| 1:46.7 | from the police station, he contacts friends, as you revealed Emily yesterday, and says this whole |
| 1:54.5 | arrest was unnecessary. It was going to be an interview under caution, but someone somewhere said, I was a flight risk, |
| 2:03.3 | and Mandelson fingered the Speaker of the House of Lords as being responsible, |
| 2:09.4 | and with a kind of cryptic, conspiratorial, who or what is going on at the end of it. |
| 2:15.7 | Right. And we heard a very vehement denial from the Speaker of the House of Lords |
... |
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