Wes Streeting bemoaned Labour’s lack of strategy under Keir Starmer in secret messages with Lord Mandelson in which he also voiced fears his own political career was ‘toast’.
The Health Secretary last night voluntarily published messages exchanged with the disgraced former minister and ambassador as he sought to distance himself from the scandal engulfing No10.
They show Mr Streeting criticising the Government’s strategy and asking Lord Mandelson’s advice on the recognition of Palestine, saying Israel was ‘committing war crimes before our eyes’ and engaging in ‘rogue state behaviour’.
The messages, from August 2024 to October 2025, were due to be published with a tranche of other documents relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US, after a Commons vote last week.
In one exchange, from March 2025, Mr Streeting told Lord Mandelson he was concerned about his chances of re-election in his Ilford North constituency, where he holds a wafer-thin majority of 528.
After a council by-election in which Labour lost its safest ward in neighbouring Ilford South to a ‘Gaza independent’ candidate, he said: ‘I fear we’re in big trouble here – and I am toast at the next election.’
Mr Streeting added: ‘There isn’t a clear answer to the question: why Labour?’
Lord Mandelson replied that the Government ‘doesn’t have an economic philosophy which is then followed through in a programme of policies’, to which Mr Streeting said: ‘No growth strategy at all.’
In a discussion earlier that day they had discussed the departure of comms director Matthew Doyle, with Mandelson asking why he was pushed out.
Streeting replied ‘god knows’, and when Lord Mandelson said communications were not the source of the government’s problems he replied: ‘Quite’.
This morning the Metropolitan Police warned ministers against releasing their own messages, warning it was ‘vital due process is followed, so that our criminal investigation and any potential prosecution is not compromised’.
The Health Secretary last night voluntarily published messages exchanged with the disgraced former minister and ambassador as he sought to distance himself from the scandal engulfing No10.
They show Mr Streeting criticising the Government’s strategy and asking Lord Mandelson’s advice on the recognition of Palestine, saying Israel was ‘committing war crimes’
Speaking to Sky News, Mr Streeting said he was ‘happy to have been proved wrong in terms of how I felt about the economy last year’, citing growth and falling interest rates.
He also said he would be standing in Ilford North, and that he was now seeing more support from people who did not vote or voted for other parties at the last election.
Mr Streeting’s association with Lord Mandelson has been seen by some in Westminster as a possible hurdle, should he seek to succeed Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader.
Writing in the Guardian, Mr Streeting said he was ‘not a close friend of Peter Mandelson’, and met the peer ‘for dinner on average once a year, in a group setting’.
He added that Lord Mandelson ‘offered advice’.
The messages published by Mr Streeting showed one such case, where the Health Secretary contacted Mr Mandelson ‘to check in with you on recognition of Palestine and the domestic politics of it’.
They show Mr Streeting expressing concern that the Government could lose a Commons vote on recognition, saying there were ‘no circumstances’ in which he or now-Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood ‘could abstain or vote against’.
He also described Israel as ‘committing war crimes before our eyes’ and said Labour should be ‘leading the charge on this’, later adding: ‘This is rogue state behaviour.
‘Let them pay the price as pariahs with sanctions applied to the state, not just a few ministers.’
In reply, Lord Mandelson suggested recognising the state of Palestine, which the Government did in September last year, could ‘blow a (two-state solution) out of the water’.
Other messages showed Mr Streeting asking if Lord Mandelson could put him in touch with US politician Pete Buttigieg, and seeking advice ahead of a meeting with US health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr that had been ‘sprung on’ him.
The last message from Mr Streeting was sent on September 3 2025, shortly before Lord Mandelson was sacked.
The peer shared his final letter to British embassy staff in Washington with Mr Streeting on September 11, and then a Times article about Dutch politician, Robert Jetten, on October 30, but received no reply from the Health Secretary.
In his Guardian article, Mr Streeting said Lord Mandelson’s association with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein ‘did not weigh heavily enough with decision-makers’ ahead of his appointment as ambassador.
Calling for ‘real change’ in the wake of the scandal, he added Lord Mandelson would not have been appointed ‘if women such as (Home Office minister) Jess Phillips had been in that room when the decision was taken’.
