Revealed: the missing Mandelson messages |
Darren Jones has become the UK government’s Walter Model, the general known during World War Two as “the Führer’s fireman” for his deployment to shore up any position which appeared lost. In that capacity, Britain’s first Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister had the thankless task of presenting the government’s case to the House of Commons on Monday following the publication of 1,500 pages of documents relating to Peter Mandelson.
Jones himself was spared direct embarrassment because none of his exchanges with the disgraced peer came to light in the trawl of memos, emails and WhatsApp exchanges. Which is curious since The Spectator was informed in mid-April that messages between the pair were likely to emerge as part of the disclosure process and that Jones might find this somewhat awkward.
Surely it cannot be that Jones, a minister in the Cabinet Office, has had his blushes spared by officials in the, er, Cabinet Office? Or that one of the most senior members of government failed to disclose such messages to an inquiry run by his own department?
But no, as the minister explained to MPs: “Some messages may not have been backed up where devices may have been changed or disappearing messages were turned on for reasonable and permitted reasons, including before the dismissal of Peter Mandelson or the passing of the humble address, myself included.”
Jones went on to “recall… having some limited exchanges with Peter Mandelson over WhatsApp.” But, rest assured, “these conversations did not involve transacting government business and were in line with official guidance on the use of non-corporate communications channels at the........