Peter Mandelson haunts Labour
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 February 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Overnight, Peter Mandelson has been released on bail after being arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
He has not commented publicly in recent weeks, though he has previously denied any wrongdoing.
How long will this row continue to haunt Labour? With more documents due to be released relating to his appointment as US ambassador, can the party contain the damage — or is this just the beginning?
Elsewhere, Keir Starmer has made an unexpected visit to Gorton and Denton. Is this a show of confidence — or a last-ditch attempt to shore up support?
Tim Shipman and John McTernan, former political secretary to Tony Blair, join Megan McElroy to discuss.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, The Spectator's Daily Politics podcast. I'm |
| 0:09.0 | Megan McElwreck and I'm joined today by our political editor Tim Shipman and John McTurnon, |
| 0:13.4 | former political secretary to Tony Blair and PR advisor at Burson. So the first thing we have to |
| 0:18.4 | start with is that overnight Peter Mandelson has been released on bail after he was arrested on Monday evening on suspicion of misconduct in public office. |
| 0:27.0 | He's not commented publicly in recent weeks, but he has previously denied any wrongdoing. |
| 0:32.0 | Tim, how seismic a moment would you consider this? |
| 0:34.9 | Well, look, it's great theatre and the police like doing this tipping off the |
| 0:38.2 | media when they're going to go and lift someone in this way and we'd all been waiting for this |
| 0:43.7 | moment I guess it was implied that it was going to happen. Police had been in to see Peter |
| 0:48.7 | Manelson for a chat a week ago and now they went to sort of formally arrest him and question him and I think |
| 0:55.0 | he left about half past one in the morning. So it's a great sort of media event but really all it |
| 1:00.8 | does politically is make life awkward I think for the Labour Party in the week of a by-election. |
| 1:07.1 | But it doesn't tell us anything new about this particular scandal, which is going to run and run and run. |
| 1:12.5 | We know that files they're going to be released surrounding Peter Mandelson are still the unexploded bomb under this government. |
| 1:18.8 | We don't know quite how much dynamite they will contain. |
| 1:22.6 | But this event in itself doesn't mean a great deal apart from, you know, embarrassment for Peter |
| 1:27.5 | Mandelson. We are waiting to see what he was messaging other people in the government, what |
| 1:32.4 | they were sending to him, and how much of that material is redacted for national security reasons |
| 1:37.2 | or because it might undermine our relationships with the Americans. But this is just a reminder, |
| 1:43.1 | and I think maybe politically this is the most significant thing that happened yesterday, |
| 1:47.1 | the government was trying to spend a lot of time talking about the seven billion pounds they were putting into special educational needs, |
| 1:53.8 | and instead the headlines were taken over by highly sort of exotic footage of, you know, a former peer of the realm and, you know, |
... |
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