Morgan McSweeney: Starmer’s ‘human shield’ plays the Mandelson blame game | The Daily T

Tim, we are in not -so -sunny Cardiff, but we are in Wales.We are on the second day of the Daily Tea Roadshow, and we've just been upstairs at the City Arms pub opposite the Principality Stadium.This landlord is the only one in the country who seems to be filling his boots, selling pint after pint to Welsh punters.And we've just been upstairs watching Morgan McSweeney give his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

Yes, he was supposed to be deployed as a human shield to protect Keir Starmer and he did take personal responsibility but then went on to blame everyone else, including the Prime Minister.

We will be discussing yet another Emily Thornberry fest and speaking to the punters here about Welsh politics.Are you sick and tired of Labour?Are the Tories going to be lesser spotted here by this time next week?And all the rest.So, welcome to this very special Daily Tea from Cardiff with me, Camilla Tomminy.

And me, Tim Stanley.

I'm enjoying this respectful silence.You can chip in as much as you like.So, can I just say that the biggest surprise of this morning is that Morgan McSweeney isn't Scottish.He's, well, because he's got...A kilt -clad name.He looks a bit Scottish because there's a touch of ginger there.

But he's actually from Cork in Ireland.He's very Irish.

Yes.Well, as someone watching said, he's the size of a jockey.And he's up against Emily Thornberry, who was wearing silver grapes against royal purple.

It was black, I think, wasn't it?

Was it black?It looked purple on the telly.And she had this silver set of comets to go around her neck.

I thought she was channeling her inner Baroness Hale.In Black Lace, it was kind of Miss Havisham goes dark, no Black Spider brooch, but she was going in for the kill there.

Yes, but before we discuss them, we have to explain why the teapot has changed colour.

Oh yes, we had an absolute shocker yesterday.Obviously Tim and I were getting mobbed at the Londonevent where we... almost had to separate James Cleverley and Zia Yusuf.

This is a debate that people will be able to watch on Thursday, where we had James Cleverley, James Murray of the Treasury, and Zia Yusuf.And when they arrived, there was already bad blood between them.I think we can give that much away.

Yeah, Zia Yusuf accused James Cleverley of taking over the Green Room, as Boris had allowed immigrants to do to the country during his tenure.

It was like, it's typical of the Tories.The less power you have, the more staff you have.Yes.So James Cleverley turned up with an army of advisors who took over the Green Room.Zia Yusuf had his own security and James Murray, the only one there who actually does anything for a living, just showed up with a lady with some bags.

Yes, that's right, that's right.So there was fisticuffs and it was quite funny because it was light blue on dark blue.James Murray was just watching the righties go at each other's throats.Anyway, at the end, we dispatched the politicians, we said to anybody who had come to the event in London, come up, have a selfie with us.We didn't charge because we're not Meghan Markle.And suddenly the stage was, I'm over -exaggerating, there was a little bit of a stampede.

The big yellow teapot is no more, ladies and gentlemen.To be fair, I did get it on eBay and it's easily replaceable.So we've got a temporary one which barely does more than one and a half cups.We need a much bigger yellow.If anyone's got a massive yellow teapot that they want to donate to the cause, we will have it.But back to the affairs of the day.

So Morgan McSweeney, we didn't know how he was going to play this because If you were him, you'd be pretty angry right now.He's been thrown under the bus by the Prime Minister.The Prime Minister is facing a vote later on whether or not he needs to face the Privileges Committee, which he'll probably win, so he probably won't face that scrutiny.But Morgan McSweeney is in this long line of staff who have been blamed, let's be honest, for the PM's failings.

He's the most important one.really, who's disappeared.I mean, yes, indeed, he's Irish, he's originally from Cork, worked in local Labour politics, he's famous for helping to defeat the BNP in East London, worked with Labour Together and the Labour Right to transform the party after Corbyn, and it was idolized by many MPs for a long time as the man who modernized the party and made it electable.So there was a time when most people only spoke fondly of him.He then became embroiled in the Mandelson scandal because he is the person chiefly blamed for pushing Mandelson's appointment as ambassador to the United States.And you're right, he lost his job.

We were expecting a Rasputin.We didn't get that.Very softly spoken, his voice like a piccolo.a slight tremble, his feet tapping beneath the table, but he began very strongly by making a statement in which he apologised to the victims and saying this was my responsibility, the appointment of Peter Maddelson.

My name is Morgan McSweeney, I was a former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Keir Starmer from October 2024 till February of this year.Chair, Thank you for inviting me to appear before this committee today.I hope to assist you in your work as fully as I can.Before addressing the specific matters before you, I am grateful that you have allowed me to say something briefly.First, I want to say something about the victims and survivors connected to Geoffrey Epstein.Too often, discussions of public figures and appointments can lose sight of the human suffering at the centre of these matters.

Women and girls were abused, exploited and scarred.They deserved protection then and they deserve to be remembered now.I am sorry for any part this controversy has played in causing further hurt or distress.I've spent much of my working life trying, in whatever role I held, to make this country fairer, stronger and more successful.I have always believed public service is a privilege.It brings responsibility and scrutiny, but it also brings a meaningful chance to improve people's lives.

That is what motivated me in government.The appointment of Mandelson as ambassador was a serious error of judgment.I advised the Prime Minister in support of that appointment and I was wrong to do so.

I actually think that was quite a good move.I think it was good to, I mean, sometimes we look at, I acknowledge the victims and all this, and you're still asking, why the hell did you appoint Peter Mandelson if you acknowledge the victims?And we'll get into his different lines of defence.But he appeared humble.He appeared earnest.He appeared genuine.

Sometimes people think these sort of fly -by -night Downing Street advisors are slick and smug.I mean, he looks half his age.I looked up his age.He's older than me.He's 49.

Red hair.

Is it that?I wouldn't mind his skincare regimen, I've got to be honest.But he basically looked as if he was pretty sorry about the whole saga.Now, the one nettle he absolutely wanted to grasp is the suggestion that had been made by the media, and it was picked up by Sir Ollie Robbins when he appeared before the same committee last week, It's this suggestion that because of his very close relationship with his mentor, Peter Mandelson, it was alleged that Morgan McSweeney had picked up the phone to the then Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office, Sir Philip Barton, who gave evidence earlier, but it was not particularly interesting, so we could gloss over it slightly, and said, just effing get it done.

Yes.

And if he had have said that, it would drive a coach and horses through the Prime Minister's defence that due process was followed, because due process is followed in a newsroom when people...just effing get it done.I'm not sure you can apply that to number 10.

But crucially it's the F word that he's seen most upset about and he described it as false and corrosive to politics that people report such things and a rumor turns into something which is accepted fact when it's untrue.But he really was actually He seemed offended that people thought that he spoke like Malcolm Tucker.Yes.And he didn't sound like someone who speaks like Malcolm Tucker or who might say that.

No, no, it's a good, well -behaved, I would assume, Irish Catholic, Tim.

Yeah, exactly.

Catholics don't swear at all, do they?

No, of course they don't.No, they don't.No, but there is also, there is some, there is some hypocrisy in journalists reporting this when we all know that we talk like dockers.

Yes, that's true, actually.

Nobody f's and blinds more than the occupants of a So he was very keen to emphasize that he's been misrepresented.He had previously said, I don't recognize the reports of myself.He was also keen to put down this idea that he hero -worshipped Peter Mandelson.

Yes, there was a really interesting line where he said, well, when I was meant to have been hero -worship him or when he was so -called my mentor, I was in my 40s.I was too old for him to have had that influence.However, He did also admit that his relationship with Mandelson went back quite a long time.

Yes.

And this is where we get into, I think, the first killer question from Emily Thornberry.And it goes back to the original point, which is Karen Pierce, the former ambassador, was there.she was doing a good job.

And the Trump administration liked it.They liked her.And when Morgan McSweeney visited America, the Trump administration said, we're quite happy with her.

So why on earth did you think that Karen Pierce needed to be replaced?And secondly, why on earth did you think Peter Mandelson was the right person to replace her?

And this is where the excuses begin.So here'sis Brexit and Trump.

Yes.Blame Brexit and Trump, if in doubt, on the left.

It's the international context.So he said, what I thought was fascinating, because I hadn't thought of this before, is had Kamala Harris won, this would never have happened.So we can blame Harris as well.So we can blame Harris.And Biden.So that's number three.

And Biden.

OK, so number one is Brexit.He said we had to do something with the United States on trade because we were dangerously exposed after Brexit because we no longer have the free trade deal with the EU.So I thought Peter would be good because he had been an EU trade commissioner.So that's blame number one for Brexit.

Good minister for Gordon Brown.

Right.Blame number two, Donald Trump slash Kamala Harris, because she lost and he won.And that meant their calculation for who should be ambassador was different because they weren't going to pick a standard operating lefty like David Miliband.Instead, they wanted to choose the kind of person they thought could deal with Donald Trump.

He didn't put it as clearly as Morris Glassman to us last week.He said they needed a snake to go into a snake pit.

Right, right.Another name mentioned was George Osborne.

Yes, what a choice!Those are the two lead candidates for the AMBO job in Washington, Mandelson or Osborne.It's like, would you rather be shot or stabbed?Honestly.

But of course, Osborne famously has a hundred jobs, running a museum, running a newspaper, etc.

Yes, Black Rock.

Whereas Peter Mandelson at the time was angling for another job as well, which was Oxford University, Chancellor of Oxford University.And McSweeney says that Mandelson told him, I was also thinking of Oxford.And McSweeney claims that he said, but you couldn't accept both.So we have then, we're up to a person to blame number three.Yes, which is Oxford University.They should have given him that job, that's right.

If they had done the decent thing and given Peter Mandelson a job, we wouldn't be where we are.That's correct.

So we've gotall of those people blamed now the most interesting aspect of the blame game is how much he blames the Prime Minister yes he found himself between a rock and a hard place didn't he because He was constantly going into defence of Keir Starmer by insisting that he was the most consultative, listening ear that has ever occupied Downing Street.This is a man who turns to everybody in the room, ladies and gentlemen, and says, what do you think?Considers it all carefully.

Yes.

So on one hand, he was saying he's consulted.And by the way, if anybody else had raised concerns about Mandelson, he wouldn't have just taken my word for it.He would have considered all the options.

Yes.So that's the fourth person.blame, not the Prime Minister yet, everyone else.

Who didn't say anything.

Because his point is that no one else was saying don't do this, so where were all the people who should have been doing this?And the fifth person to blame is Angela Rayner.

Oh yes, because she had a tax problem, they have to deal with a reshuffle, it's chaos.Oh sorry, I've thought of one other.Rachel Reeves, because she had to do a budget, so she's to blame because he's concerned with budgetary concerns, he doesn't care much about this appointment.

Yes, exactly.

But in a way, when push comes to shove and he was asked, hang on a minute, let's just get this straight.You're an advisor, right?And a prime minister is a decider.Morgan McSweeney couldn't deny that premise.

Yeah.

He did say, ultimately, this.

He had all the knowledge that I had, but I don't know what other knowledge and this is part of what this committee is looking at, what he should have otherwise have been told and not told, but he had all the knowledge that I had, yes.

And that he was the one who ultimately will have made the decision, not being persuaded or kind of doing what somebody else wanted him to do?

Yes, the Prime Minister takes the decision, yes.

When you mentioned the Angela Rayner reshuffle, we had a great insight into the man who Jeffrey Epstein affectionately knew as Petey and his role in Downing Street.So there's constantly been these stories that, as the former Prince of Darkness, and indeed as the Dark Lord, as somebody who is considered to be Machiavellian in his political scheming, that Peter Mandelson's fingerprints were not only all over the candidates that were selected for the 2024 general election, which Morgan McSweeney denied, but that his fingerprints were also all over that emergency reshuffle that was necessitated by Angela Rayner having to resign as Deputy Prime Minister.

McSweeney's line throughout is, people text me all the time.People send me ideas all the time.The implication is Mandelson is one of a number of people who are sending nuisance messages trying to get him to do things.But the point is that on the day of the reshuffle, Peter Mandelson, then nominated as ambassador to the United States, was in number 10.Why?He was in number 10.

We don't know why.McSweeney was asked in the session, why were you taking texts from him?Why didn't you just speak to the man, given he was in the same building?And McSweeney replied, because he wasn't in the same room.

Yes.

Now, when you want to talk to someone and you're in the same building, you should just find them and talk to them.We are meant to believe that Peter Manilson was just wandering around number 10.

Yes.

possibly in a broom cupboard, not talking to anyone, just texting, just sitting next to a vacuum cleaner, sending texts and having no impact upon events whatsoever.

But if you and I are sitting next to each other in the office, as we do, and I wanted to send you something secretly and didn't want the comment desk behind us to overhear, I would WhatsApp you.So there's something slightly suspicious about Mandelson trying to exert influencein secret.And actually what we got from that is the admission that during that period, regardless of whether he read them or not or acted upon them, he was being bombarded with messages by Peter Mandelson.

Yes.Now, we should mention that this line of inquiry by Emily Thornberry was based a lot on stuff she has read in newspapers that she just read out and asked, is that true?And this is a Times story, which included a wonderful quote from someone inside number 10 of Mandelson.They said, he just won't leave.Which does give you, and there were other things she quoted in McSweeney which he was able, I think, quite convincingly to say that's just not true, such as you met in 1997.No, we met in 2001.

And my job at that time in the so -called rebuttal unit was just to paste bits of paper onto newspapers or something like that.

Yes, I think he was doing the newspaper cuttings and putting them before ministers.

Right, exactly.Shadow ministers.Exactly.So some of those things she shut down.But I do think that gives an interesting insight into how Mandelson operates, that he shows up and he just imposes himself and won't go away.So he makes himself necessary.

But, and he makes himself part of the conversation.But if you can see through that, if he is just one of many people doing that, don't you put him in his place?

Well, yes, but they're all a bit scared of him.And I think the killer line that came from McSweeney when it comes to the kind of operator Peter Mandelson is, is when he was asked, sorry, Who was the main person advocating for Peter Mandelson to become US ambassador?And to be fair to him, quite amusingly, McSweeny answered, Peter Mandelson.

Right, right, right.

So we have this situation where, OK, other people might put his name forward, but the one person putting his name forward again and again and again was Mandelson himself.

Yes, yes.

And he even described, he used a very interesting word to describe Peter Mandelson putting his eggs in other baskets, including Oxford.McSweeney said he was hedging.So all the time there's this guy who thinks he must get a top job somewhere, it's just a question of who appoints him first.

Yes, exactly.And wouldn't you just say no to someone like that?It just sounds like a serial pest.It's not someone who I'd want in my administration, someone who is obviously looking out for their own interests and what their next job is.

So we have McSweeny admitting that the Prime Minister ultimately took the decision, but let's just go through the vetting process and what his knowledge of it was.There are two different things and it's confusing because there's DV, which is developed vetting, and there is DD, which is due diligence.We know that before appointing Peter Mandelson, the Prime Minister's given a massive dossier which includes an article that I co -wrote for the Telegraph with a number of colleagues laying bare over nearly 3 ,000 words the true nature of the relationship between Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein because before birthday books are revealed and before Epstein files are uncovered we already know a great deal about the closeness of these two in the same way that we know that the former Duke of York had stayed with Epstein post -conviction.

So this is due diligence.This is all due diligence.Which means as we heard in this session Prime Minister didn't like Peter Mandelson We now know that he saw documents confirming to him that the person he doesn't like is unlikable before he made the appointment.

Exactly.So this is all put before the prime minister.And again, Emily Thornberry summed it up really, really well.How on earth, when you knew everything you knew about Mandelson, did you decide to appoint before any vetting had taken place?

Keir didn't like him.I mean, again, for the new statesman, Keir doesn't even like him and never really has.He's not Keir's sort of person.And the Foreign Office definitely didn't like him, as far as we can tell.And then, of course, there's all the red flags.So all of these things are problems, you know, getting in the way of Peter Maddleton becoming ambassador.

But you still wanted him to be ambassador, right?

At the time, in Downing Street, there was conversations about who could be the best candidate.and names were considered and most people were making pros and cons arguments.

Basically McSweeney is saying, yeah we did have the due diligence.And it did include a box that the Prime Minister never filled in, that blank box where he's meant to react to the revelation that actually Mandelson is very close to Epstein, put some comments in a box, even tick the box, at least acknowledge the box, which he didn't.So we know that the Prime Minister did know about the reputational risks involved in appointing Mandelson.Let's be honest, what moron couldn't?What McSweeney is saying is, but I didn't know that he had failed the vetting.

And to be fair, that is until now standard operating procedure.You make the appointment and then you do the vetting.

The Prime Minister has now changed that and said we should never do that again by the way because it's a really bad idea.

Yes.

And by the way we should also remind ourselves once again that Simon Case who was then the top civil servant in the land had said to the Prime Minister don't appoint this man before you do the vetting.McSweeney said I never saw that letter but Keir Starmer did because it was addressed to him.

McSweeney also says again in his defence that had he seen the results of the vetting he would have pulled the appointment and although it would have been hugely embarrassing it would have been better than allowing Mandelson to proceed.

Well this was also the concession by McSweeney that at the end of the day They were aware that there were pros and cons.Let's listen to how he explained the context of all this.

I didn't have any strong disagreements with anyone in number 10 that I can recall.Like everyone else I could see there was pros and cons in the appointment and I worried that it would go wrong so I didn't try to push anything through.We procured two strong candidates for him.One was Mandelson, and the other was George Osborne, the former Chancellor of Exchequer, who I'd met as part of it.And my view was that we had, and I said to the Prime Minister, you have two appointable candidates.Others agreed that there was two appointable candidates.

I can't recall anyone saying that Mandelson was not appointable.

A point that came up in the previous session, where Philip Barton, the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, was also grilled, was it was noted that Mandelson was walking around with a pass.And the pass implies you've had the vetting.

Yes.

Right.And there are questions we still need to examine of what was he able to get access to.I mean, just think about this in any organization.Someone's given a job at the Telegraph.They're handed a pass to enter the Telegraph.if you do that before they're then properly vetted, they have access to all parts of the telegraph, and people and guards might think they have the right to have that access, not realising they've not actually been properly processed yet.

And we wouldn't want to let such individuals anywhere near Matt, for instance.

Right, right.Yes, quite.So yes, that's a perfectly reasonable question to raise about security.

Having said that, again, quite worryingly, McSweeney admits that quite a few people appear to be appointed before they're vetted.Jonathan Powell, the number 10 National Security Advisor, I mean that's a pretty significant role that you would hope somebody might be extremely rigorously checked for.He apparently was appointed before the vetting.And then we also move on, by the way,to Matthew Doyle.Now, Matthew Doyle is the former head of communications for Dowdustry, who also unfortunately happened to be friends with the convicted paedophile.

Friendship ended after conviction.We must say that, it did.I feel rather sorry for Matthew Doyle, but anyway, carry on.

Well, just this propensity for the PM to just keep on appointing or trying to promote friends of paedophiles is unfortunate, isn't it?I mean, have you ever promoted a friend of a paedophile, as far as you're aware?

No, I don't believe I have.But I don't believe in tarring people with that.

With somebody else's brush.

Exactly.All right, fair enough.

But how about this, though?I think we can tar the Prime Minister with the Chamocracy brush.

Yes.

Because the suggestion was that because Matthew Doyle's time in office was coming to an end, that he had to be given some other plumb position.

Yes.

And indeed, McSweeney conceded that Keir Starmer wanted Matthew Doyle to, quote, land on his feet.

Yes.

And he fishes around for a job, potentially for Matthew Doyle to be an ambassador somewhere.

Yes.

He doesn't want to tell the then Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, that he's doing that.He wants to kind of keep it on the down low.Well, why?

Yeah.

If you're going to turn around and say to the Tories, oh, it's all Bullingdon boys together.You're scratching each other's backs.Do you remember all that stuff about the Covid contracts and all the rest of it?And then you get into office and you do precisely the same back scratching with your own left wing mates.Why is it any different?

Yes.It's a boys club.Matthew Doyle did end up in the House of Lords.Yes.

He got a peerage.

Lucky him.I mean, it's the funny thing about lefties, you know, they hate the monarchy, they hate the Lords, they hate the British class system, but they all want Ermin.Yes.What is that about?There's also a glimmer of a contradiction there in that McSweeney, to demonstrate how unimportant Mandelson was to him,kept saying there are other people in my life who I've turned jobs down to.

who were closer to me than Mandelson.So Mandelson I wanted to appoint because I genuinely thought he was the right man for the job.But as a rule, I don't do things like that.

No.

But here's a description of them considering doing something like that.

And I think we also know that there was an element to the PM, like all PMs, giving jobs for the boys.And I'm merely making the point that it's fine if we accept that everybody who's prime minister is always going to give jobs to boys.brackets and girls because they're prime minister and they can dole out peerages and they can give top jobs to people that then have an enormous kind of like gold star on their CV.They've worked in Downing Street.What I object to, and this is my objection throughout with Keir Starmer, he's pretending he's not that person.He's pretending he's a different prime minister.

He's pretending he's a man of service, public service and decency and integrity.And all of this behaviour, whether or not you believe in the nitty gritty of him knowingly or unknowingly misleading parliament, he's not the next messiah, he's just another naughty boy.And you know, just stop pretending that you're the second coming.And we have this in all of these self -servingly kind of pious speeches.It's just ridiculous.Take responsibility, man.

Well, to sum it all up, I think the moment people will be talking about the most is when McSweeney said...

The nature of the relationship that I understood he had with Epstein was not a close friendship.How I understood it at the time was a passing acquaintance that he regretted having and that he apologised for what has emerged since then.was way, way, way worse than I had expected at the time.And it was when I saw the pictures, when I saw the Bloomberg questions in September 2024.

That works if you didn't know about their relationship previously.and if this is a complete surprise to you when it comes to Peter Mandelson's character.But at the same time, his description of Mandelson, his attempt to distance himself from him, talk about him walking around number 10 trying to influence things, the fact that he's trying to get a job here, trying to get there.Mandelson is sinister, but he's also faintly ridiculous.And the notion that at this unique moment in history in which we're cut adrift from Europe, but we're also trying to build a bridge to America, I'm going to go with that man as though he's the Kissinger or the Metternich of his day.

Yeah.

When you're also saying I barely know him and I think he's laughable.Yes.It doesn't add up.I don't believe it.And, of course, the one person we've himself...And the Prime Minister of the Privileges Committee.

Well, we hear from him every starting day.Probably enough, yeah.But the one person we haven't heard from is Mandelson, who said of McSweeney at one point, whoever invented him, whoever gave us Morgan McSweeney will be rewarded in heaven.So maybe Mandelson isn't McSweeney's hero, But we have it on record that McSweeney is Mandelson's hero.

Yes, which is interesting.The phrase he used was finding out about the closeness of the relationship between Epstein and Mandelson was a knife to his soul.I'd suggest that seeing that photograph of Mandelson in his wife's was a knife to our eyes, honestly.So to conclude, Tim, we cannot report in this podcast the outcome of this vote as to whethernot the PM should face his own gruelling before the Privileges Committee.

We know it's going to be whipped.We know Labour MPs are going to be whipped, so we can safely say it will have failed.

Which is spineless, by the way.

And Boris famously allowed the Privileges Committee to investigate him.Yes.But it was a huge mistake and it led to him losing his job.So I think it's smart politically not to allow that.

It's smart politically, but morally it's found wanting.Because if you're a prime minister who insists you're whiter than white and that you've got nothing to hide.Go before a grilling.You're legally trained.You're very adept, actually, at boring us all to tears with how you follow the process.Go on, go before the committee for an hour and a half and, you know, weasel your way out of this.

Yeah.On the other hand, by this time in two weeks, I think we'll be talking about other things, local elections.

Well, we'll be talking about whether or not Angela Rayner is going to be the next prime minister.

Exactly.Exactly.

I've got some breaking news.Morgan McSweeney's been asked about his stolen phone at the committee.Okay, so he remembers that the phone has got stolen.He doesn't really make a big deal on the phone to the police that it was a government phone with top -secret information on it.He says he phoned Number 10 straight after and thought they would track the phone.He would have done whatever Number 10 told him to do.

He then made further calls to Number 10 on what phone?The phone that wasn't stolen by a man on a bike wearing a balaclava, possibly.He was quite surprised by the lack of security around government phones.When asked about the discrepancy in his location, do you remember he said he was in one street and apparently he was in another.He assumed the police call handler was looking up the location on a map.He was adrenalinized, is that a word, producers?

Let's use it anyway, and tired from giving chase, he wrongly thought it would be tracked so he could get it back.The police are apparently keeping McSweeneyup to date but they still haven't found the phone.Could it be at the bottom of the North Sea along with Rebecca Vardy's agent's phone?

Yes.

And what about the information on the phone Tim?He says, not much else would have been on the phone about Mandelson.He shared everything he had in September with the team.Not all phone records will still be available, but recipients of the messages he sent will still have them, i .e.Mandelson's got all these messages.

Let's have a look at your phone, Petey.Asked if the phone's contents were backed up somewhere.He says, yes, it should be on the other phone he gave back to the government.He said he didn't change settings, so not sure if there is a backup of the stolen phone.He had disappearing messages on.including for Mandelson.

Right.Oh, I've just got to the end and I think that's the killer line.If he had disappearing messages, Tim, the clue is in the word disappearing messages.

Yes, we no longer have them, right?We wouldn't be able to read them.Or can we?I don't know.I don't understand how the technology works.

Well, no.

I believe if you take a phone, and unless you really hammer it really hard.Have you done this?If you stamp on it.They're always in there.But he is surprised that the phone wasn't chased.

I think he thinks both the police and number 10 would have been tracking this phone as if he's like in Minority Report with Tom Cruise.

In the same way that Keir Starmer is surprised that people aren't vetted before appointments.And now he's discovered this, he's changed the system.So this is the problem with the government.It's a government which is constantly being taken unawares.Is it the most naive government in history?But are they not the kind of people who ought to ask before that?

I mean, if your phone is stolen, don't you ask, are you going to find it for me?

Yes, you do ask that.But as we have discovered today, having watched yet another committee hearing, there is a distinct lack of curiosity, seemingly, at the heart of number 10.Shall we open out to questions to the floor?Because we'd be very, very interested to hear how the good people are doing.and Cardiff are feeling about the local elections next week.

OK, go on.The first question is from Mark with a C. Hi, guys.

Not really local elections, but more national stuff.I was just wondering, will we have to wait for a next general election for someone in Whitehall to take our nation's defence series again, or is Labour actually going to step up and do that?

Well, I think by the time Cossacks are marching down Pall Mall, the government of the day will finally say we need to raise defense spending.But until the Treasury commits the money, it's really just all talk.And, well, people will find out on Thursday, but we pressed the people on the panel about whether or not, if the Falkland Islands were attacked, could we actually defend them, which seems to me the most interesting question.In a way, Iran should have been a run, a test run, of what can we do.And we've seen what we can't do.So we must be in a position next time where nothing like that ever happens again, because it was just so embarrassing.

Also, I think that defense spending, it�s always attributed to a defense secretary, but actually it�s all down to the chancellor.And we heard Rachel Reeves in Washington sort of critical of Trump, critical of the war in Iran.She doesn�t want to stump up more cash for the military, regardless of the very cogent arguments made by John Healey and others.And I think that defence investment plan that they were meant to come out with last autumn as a result of the strategic review and obviously Lord Robertson and others being highly critical of their complacency over it tells you everything you need to know about where the government's priorities are.

There was a great man from Wales, Nye Bevan, who when talking about nuclear weapons talked about if you disarm you go naked into the negotiating room and that's what we are right now and the Prime Minister talked aboutworld to various countries to talk about mutual defense and protecting us against dictatorships.But without the weaponry, it's absolutely meaningless.It would probably be better for the Chancellor if we were to take HMS Dragon, put a nice big wheel on the side of it, and some, some casinos in the interior, perhaps some slot machines and some roulette, and that could at least generate some income.

Yes, you and I could do a little tour of it.Take the daily tea on the sea.Now there's a question about uniting the right from Nigel.Not Farage, I'm sure, but Nigel, there you are.

A man of a certain age.

If you name Nigel, you're always going to be a certain age.You're certainly not a young man, anyway.I think my question was, I haven't got my phone on me actually, was there has to, I think it was Jacob Rees -Mogg said on your daily tea a while ago, and I've been calling for a while about The Conservatives are almost a non -entity anymore, and that's quite sad in many ways.Reform, obviously, are splitting that right vote.Is there a chance that they're ever going to come together to try and take on what would be the left?Or is that just no chance at all?

I mean, I think speaking from a Welsh perspective, you can say the Tories are now a non -entity because they look like they're going to be completely wiped out.And then that does pose an existential question for them.They are the Conservative and Unionist Party.And if they've got no real presence in Wales and no real presence in Scotland, can they credibly claim that name?Having said that, I think rumors of their imminent death are exaggerated.Today, YouGov has come out with a polling suggesting that, yes, again, reform is ahead on, I think, 26 or 27.

Conservatives are on 19, Labour's on 18, Green's behind, and Lib Dems.If you're on 19%, you aren't dead.And any of the MRP polling suggests that, yes, reform looks set to get the most seats, but nothing near a majority right now.So we have this bizarre situation, and again, you're going to see this on Thursday, with us asking Zia Yousaf, come on.Are you really telling us that man of the people Nigel Farage is going to look this country in the face come whenever the next election is, 2029, and say, No, we would rather let in four more years of Labour or a so -called progressive alliance rather than team up with our chums on the right.I would find that unthinkable.

I don't think he'll do a pre -election pact, but regardless of whether or not they actually viscerally hate each other, and I don't think there's much love lost between Badenock and Farage, I think a deal is going to have to be done, isn't it, Tim?

But Camilla, are the Conservatives on the right?That's my question.They look to me at the moment like a leadership with a party bolted on.I think a large part of that 19 % is Kemi.I think she's doing a very good job.She's cutting through.

She's rating very well.But the problem from the Reform Party's point of view is, OK, they miss getting a majority.They form an alliance with the Tories.Who are they in alliance with?Because the Conservative Party is not Kemi.For instance, we've had the assisted dying debate, and people may have followed the role of Kit Malthouse in this.

Tory MP.Now I'm sorry from my point of view as a philosophical conservative some of the things he said just aren't conservative.

Oh he's wetter than a Wednesday at Whitstable in winter.

But the Reform Party's point is a lot of the backbench Tories are like Kit Malthouse.So if they have to enter some kind of deal with the Tories they're not entering a deal with Kemi, they're entering a deal withKit.

But I agree with that.That's why Baidhnoch has had to say to her own party, if you do not support this manifesto, lock, stock and barrel, you're not being selected for the next general election.Reformers also need to be careful what they wish for, because if they try and poach all of the right -wing Tories and they're left with a rump of lefties, they can't form a coalition with them anyway, and therefore how does Nigel Farage become the next Prime Minister?The other observation I'd make, which has been helpful to Kemi Badenoch, is that, do you remember those dark old days?And in fact, we're going to encounter this in Warwick tomorrow with Jacob Rees -Mogg, because there are some very woke students in Warwick that consider Jacob Rees -Mogg to be a Nazi and a fascist.Now, that was a criticism that used to be leveled at average Tories.

And it's why people like Malthouse and Simon Hoare always wet their pants.Oh no, Brexit, it's made us look like we're racists and bigots.And it's like, well, nobody sane thinks you're a racist or a bigot just because you value sovereignty of this great nation.No one's calling them the racists and the bigots anymore for two reasons.First of all, because they're led by a black woman.And second of all, because there are people now not just to the right of them, but further to the right of them with Rupert Lowe's restore.

Yes.

That is why the lefties in the party are much happier and actually not piping up at all in criticism of leaving ECHR and changing indefinite leave to remain and all the other very robustly conservative things that Bainock is doing.So I actually think They're not going to be turkeys voting for Christmas, with the exception of Malthouse and a couple of others.She just won't tolerate them being selected next time round.

Yes.

Because she can't have these closet liberal Democrats in the camp anymore.And I also heard last week from somebody who is going through the selection process, what was once a kind of virtual thing carried out by a couple of teenagers is now a robust, proper Tories grilling people about just how blue rinsed they are.And I think that will then create at least a better selection process for the next general election, which will mean that the righties do maintain some control over the Conservative Party.

That's a lot of ifs and buts.Yes, I know.And if I want a right -wing government, I can just vote reform.Yes.You don't have to worry about any of those things.I know.

But notwithstanding your own reservations or any other reservations by any righties, that they're all talking no trousers.

Yeah, yeah.But I took one of those online tests that shows you what your politics are.

What did you come out as?

I came out as 29 % reform.like the country.And then 29 % socialist.And I think quite far behind was the Tories.And at the very bottom, almost in negative figures, was the Lib Dems.And I was intrigued that I was closer to green than I was Lib Dems.

I don't know what it is the Lib Dems believe in.No.What I believe in.

I don't think they know.

Maybe one of the questions was, what do you think about Ed Davey?

Oh, my god.I need to do this test.If I come out yellow at all, Yes.I might resign, actually.Shall we go to Huw?

Yes.

Huw, where are you, Huw?I'll read it.The IFS have stated that none of the manifestos proposed for Wales stack up financially and therefore it means whoever is elected will once again over -promise and under -deliver.When, if ever, will a party come clean and tell the electorate some hard, honest truths?

OK.Well, they might start with welfare.

Yes.

What are your views on that?

Well, OK, because you've also asked, Hugh, which party can really be trusted to reduce the welfare state?Reform's commitment to the triple lock is absurd.And I think actually, you know, we used to have North -South divides.The divide is now city and town, and it's old and young.And I think it's interesting that the demographic of our readership has changed on issues like NIMBYism.Telegraph readers are no longer NIMBY because they want their children to be able to afford homes.

near to where they grew up.So I think the complexion has changed.The welfare argument, I cannot understand why it can't politically be won by any of the parties.And I know the lefties don't want to be nasty to people on benefits.Why don't they make the simple cogent argument, look folks, all we're doing is initially is restoring it back to pre -pandemic levels.We had COVID.

we had to furlough a load of people, people had to work from home, maybe people suffered emotionally, particularly young people, and I don't think we can overlook the mental health crisis that has been precipitated, I think actually by the advent of the smartphone, but made worse by COVID.And we anecdotally, I think probably in this room, know a great many kids who have really been quite screwed up by the pandemic, and that shouldn't be overlooked.But that any leader of any party can just turn around to the country and say, this is what it was like before the pandemic, we've just got to get back to that.Instead, what's happening is it's escalating to levels by the end of this Parliament that are mind -blowingly high.And by the way, I think the dialogue has changed among actual working people.So this idea that working people are perfectly happy for people to be languishing on benefits that they pay for, and this is why we've seen the emergence of funny videos on Instagram and TikTok of like builders saying, I've got up at 5am because I've got to pay people's benefits.

Therefore, I think there is a huge amount.But there's a lack of moral courage to just grip this.And by the way, where are the arguments from the right?Why aren't the right, like Thatcher, saying, this is why capitalism works.We don't want to throw fish at people.We want to give them the means to catch fish.

What's happened to that basic economic argument that was best summed up, actually, by Arthur Laffer when we interviewed him in the Daily T some moons ago?And that all went wrong.because he talks such cogent economic sense.The right have stopped making the arguments against socialism and that's why we're in this mess.

And I think in the same way that too many people coming into the country has undermined faith in the immigration system and unfortunately bled into a prejudice against all immigrants.The same is happening with welfare, that we actually do want a safety net.We want a society in which the very ill, children, disabled people, etc., can have the care they deserve.But if there is a perception that it's being milked and manipulated, which in some places it probably is, that's going to turn people against welfare in general.I think Labour understands that, and To be fair to number 10, it wanted to reform welfare.It just discovered that it didn't have the votes to do it.

This government ran out of road really quickly and it sort of flipped a switch in their mind and they went the other way.So feeling there are so many things they can't do, they decided just to expand the stuff that their backbenchers love doing.So it became things like, you know, it becomes an emphasis upon breakfast clubs and schools, et cetera, et cetera.But you can't just keep on doing that.Eventually you're going to run out of other people's money, as Maggie Thatcher said.

Yes.

And faith in the whole system is going to crumble.We have one final question from Nigel, don't know if it's the same Nigel, who wanted to know if, notwithstanding my bias towards Angela Rayner, who does the panel think is most likely to lead the race to oust Sir Keir Starmer?Who is your money on?

I think the only person actually placed to do it that would be woefully inadequate is Ed Miliband.

Yes.

Because I'm not saying I want him.Nigel, please.Nigel.Nigel, somebody get a sick bucket for Nigel's.Angela Rayner is still facing a probe for her tax affairs.I don't agree with this everybody who's working class thinks she's a hero rhetoric.

I really don't.What, you think the good people of Welsh mining towns think Angela Rayner represents them?if she's fiddled her taxes?Absolutely not.So I don't think she's at the races as she thinks she is, right?I think Andy Murnham's got a massive problem in that he doesn't have a seat in Parliament and no one looks likely to give him one.

I think Wes Street has got a problem that he doesn't have a caucus of support behind him because he's kind of, you know, as you say, a blank -faced, moomin, resembling sort of political everyman.And he's about to be ousted by Gaza independence any day soon in Ilford North.I think Bridget Philipson, My personal fave.God love her.The ice maiden, Cometh, again doesn't have that support.Mahmood is obviously far too right -wing and actually wants to crack down on immigration, so nobody on the left wants her anywhere near it.

The only person who ticks the boxes right now is bacon sandwich chomping, Ed Stone chiseling, Miller Band of Two Kitchens fame.Hell yeah!Let's have him in.

Tim, what do you think?Well, my vote is still for Angela, and that's because, as you know, As you know, I do have a thing for redheads.It's partly that.There's a touch of the Jessica Rabbit about her.

Yes.

Are you her Bob Hoskins?It's part of that.But I think people will think I'm deadly serious when I say this.But for me, it's a question not of the prime minister that Britain needs, but the one it deserves.

You are speaking as a sketch writer, if ever I've heard it.

Yes.and I just think a country who can't send a ship to Cyprus without it sinking, one where everyone's on benefits and everyone leaves school unable to read or write, I just think it's Angela's moment.I mean, we're not far away from electing prime ministers based upon a talent show.

Yes.

Hosted by Anton Deck.

Yeah, big red crosses or green ticks.

And I can see her coming out with a Casio keyboard singing Memory from Cats or something.And everyone being in floods of tears and saying, you remind me of Mark Grant.and making her prime minister.

Yes, and you know, she's got the hair and the wardrobe and indeed the seaside property.On that note, let's draw it to a close.But thank you to everybody in the City Arms pub in Cardiff for being here.We will be back tomorrow in Warwick with protests planned by woke students against that threat to democracy, ladies and gentlemen, Jacob Rees -Mogg.So we'll be back tomorrow at five.

Thank you for joining us.