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Electoral Dysfunction

Why the Mandelson files matter for Starmer's future

Electoral Dysfunction

Sky News

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.4764 Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Keir Starmer has already admitted appointing Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador was a mistake. But after the first batch of documents was released, Beth, Ruth and Harriet ask the big question: we still don’t know how big that ‘mistake’ it was – could it get worse with what is yet to come out about what the Prime Minister knew about Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?

In this episode we break down:

  1. What’s in the first tranche of documents around Peter Mandelson’s appointmnet (and what’s still missing)
  2. The red flags raised before Mandelson was appointed and why the process looks so rushed
  3. What “developed vetting” actually is, and why it could become the key detail
  4. The growing political risk for Starmer, including questions around what was said in the Commons

Peter Mandelson has consistently denied any criminal wrongdoing and he is cooperating with the police investigation.

Plus, a powerful moment in Parliament this week as Labour MPs Charlotte Nichols and Natalie Fleet speak about their own experiences as victims. How do their stories feed into the government’s legal reforms? And what would the plans mean for justice, juries and the courts backlog?

Got a question for the burner phone? WhatsApp 07934 200 444 or email electoraldysfunction@sky.uk.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Sky News, the full story first.

0:10.2

Hello and welcome to Electoral Dysfunction with me, Beth Rigby.

0:16.5

Me Ruth Davidson and me Harriet Harmon.

0:18.8

Now, I know we say it never stops, but it really truly

0:22.7

isn't stopping. This news treadmill that I am running on, and I'm also doing the London

0:28.1

marathon. I don't know why I'm doing it again this year. So between the running and the news cycle,

0:35.0

I am literally on my knees when I should be on my feet. And Harriet,

0:39.8

you must be all travelled out because you've just come back from New York. But Ruth,

0:44.4

you are our steady, constant. I am your boring sort of, you know, in films, I'm like the

0:51.3

second friend. So I'm not like the wingman. I'm like the, I'm like the ancillary character that's just always just steadily there in the background, sitting in their back bedroom with their books behind them, just not, I'm not using my diplomatic passport to go to the UN in New York. No, no, no, not for me. You're just, you're just quietly changing the direction of the Conservative Party by launching a new

1:12.1

movement within it. That's all you're doing. Yeah, just casually doing that. You've got to explain,

1:16.8

because this was our pre-pod chit-chat, because Harriet just got off a plane from New York. So,

1:23.0

Harry, you've now got to explain the diplomatic passport. This is the best thing I've ever heard.

1:27.4

Tell us, Harriet.

1:28.3

When you travel with the Foreign Office, which I do a special envoy on women and girls,

1:32.8

you don't take your own passport to the airport just to let you know that.

1:36.8

Because you have a special passport, which is a diplomatic passport,

1:40.8

which the team, the Foreign Office team have.

1:48.1

And basically, they do all of that and you just glide through.

1:49.5

You're having like an entourage and it's a bit like, do you know, on motorcycle outriders for

1:54.0

presidential limos, but you have it in terms of people.

1:57.0

So you've got people before you and after you that just swoosh you through places that you glide

...

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