On 2 May 2025, Lord Mandelson wrote to Pat McFadden (then a Cabinet Office minister, now the work and pensions secretary) saying: “Keir lacks verve as does the Cabinet as a whole.”
Then in July that year, messages between the two appear to show Lord Mandelson criticising advisers in No 10, saying they are good but “they don’t work as a team, they are not led and none of them really know what Keir thinks or wants.
“In fact most of them don’t think Keir knows what he wants.”
Later that month, in a further message to McFadden, Lord Mandelson says: “I have a feeling that Keir is now consistently going for direction B. His recanting on his immigration speech, on welfare, now Gaza.
“There is definitely a ‘let Keir be Keir’ trend. This is what Morgan [McSweeney] senses and so it is particularly acute for him. His view from when Keir first stood is that the cycle has been the same, advance/buckle/advance/buckle.”
Lord Mandelson later adds: “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.”
