Did you know a Cabinet Office minister commiserated with Peter Mandelson on his being sacked as ambassador to Washington, saying that he was “so sorry”? How could Darren Jones possibly sympathise with a friend who lost his job? Yet his sympathy was not even on the public record, in the 1500 pages of new revelations about the Mandelson affair. It appears to have been leaked from within Jones’s own department.
So too was news of Keir Starmer’s own communications on WhatsApp. We learned that they are subject to an auto-delete function, erasing what he thinks or intends to do from hour to hour. It is an outrage against public accountability, so the thinking goes. When our leaders press send, we have the right to receive.
The latest twist in the Mandelson saga is inquiry-itis gone mad. The incompetence of the British government is matched only by the gloating with which it investigates every mishap. Millions of pounds that should years ago have been given to victims of the Windrush, Grenfell and Post Office scandals are still filling the pockets of lawyers and officials. The more than £200m being spent on the Covid inquiry – an exercise some other European countries completed in months – is inexcusable.
Given his dismissal, the true extent of Mandelson’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein might have merited a minor Whitehall investigation. As it was, the Tories made a “humble address” to compel the disclosure of all relevant documents. Quite why the government responded as it did is a mystery. It took the form of a barrage of communications, on all subjects except “papers prejudicial to UK national security or international relations”. They were surely the entire bone of contention.
More serious must be the deadening impact of these disclosures on the wider conduct of government business. That the prime minister himself uses WhatsApp to communicate with colleagues is hardly sensational. Nor is it sensational that he uses auto-delete to clear his messages after a period of time, for which he is now ridiculed.
What must be wrong is to reveal the dealings and opinions of Mandelson when in post. The world now has the frank views of senior figures in the British government on the Trump regime. We have these figures’ private reactions to the state of politics in Britain and their opinions of their own leader – and information about their own ambitions and those of their colleagues. These may be of interest to the gossip columnists. They are not matters of public interest. Yet all is revealed, to friend and foe alike.
During the revelations by Edward Snowden and Julian Assange about the antics of western security services, media outlets sought to ensure that disclosure of any sensitive material needed to pass a “public interest” test. This was partly for the safety of those named, not least quoted ambassadors. This was not to the liking of the more radical leakers. They felt anyone in a public service sacrificed the right to privacy. The Guardian sensibly disagreed.
Clearly the entire digital realm is insecure. As Snowden showed, no form of communication is truly safe – and anything connected to the internet may be subject to intrusion. It would appear that this must apply to identity and NHS records, to personal insurance, employment and financial affairs. Until science comes up with a foolproof regulatory regime – the greatest challenge of our age – the fools will roam free.
In the case of the Mandelson papers, the issue is more specific. People working in government must have private zones in which they can argue and settle matters freely. Ambassadors abroad must be able to pass their judgments, in confidence, to their ministers and officials at home. Will any British ambassador dare do so now? Ministers must have a collective forum where they can express doubts about each other’s policies without it being held publicly against them. They must be able to speak their mind freely. As of now, they must do this covertly in a Commons corridor, or over a club lunch.
The principle underlying the Mandelson 1500-pager is that all those involved in government should be “on the record” for their utterances, however and wherever they occur. There should be no private conduits, no shared confidences, no trusted venues of deliberation. This cannot foster worthwhile debate. It cannot make for more efficient government, only a stifled and a frightened one.
