Politics
Streeting reveal of Mandelson messages falls flat
Health secretary and all round wrong ‘un Wes Streeting has revealed his messages with disgraced paedophile’s mate Peter Mandelson. Or at least some of them. It was a huge self-own and more revealing than he may have wished.
Streeting may have been hoping that openness would rescue his ambitions to replace his boss when he is (soon) forced out. However, the resulting disgust and mockery have surely put a final nail in the coffin of that nightmare scenario.
Not least because Streeting’s Mandelson association is just the latest such link.
Streeting was asked by Sky’s Beth Rigby about his messages. It was short and may well have been an exercise intended to neuter the impact of them. But it was still grim:
Streeting might as well have said ‘I am toast at the next election’
However, a look at some detail of the messages reveals not just how chummy the health secretary and Mandelson were, but how terrified Streeting is after almost losing his seat in 2024, as PoliticsUK pointed out in an X post. It exposes Streeting’s own low opinion of his own party. And it proves that Streeting continued to support Starmer despite having lost faith, and deny that Israel is committing genocide, despite knowing otherwise (emphases added):
[28/03/2025, 11:36:06] Wes Streeting: I fear we’re in big trouble here – and I am toast at the next election. We just lost our safest ward in Redbridge (51% Muslim, Ilford S) to a Gaza independent. At this rate I don’t think we’ll hold either of the two Ilford seats.
[28/03/2025, 11:39:54] Wes Streeting: There isn’t a clear answer to the question: why Labour?
[28/03/2025, 11:48:44] Lord Mandelson: The government doesn’t have an economic philosophy which is then followed through in a programme of policies.
[28/03/2025, 11:49:15] Wes Streeting: No growth strategy at all
“Israel is committing war crimes”
[24/07/2025, 23:00:29] Wes Streeting: Am sure this will come up in coming days, so wanted to check in with you on recognition of Palestine and the domestic politics of it.
Keir’s statement today was excellent, but Macron’s statement tonight ups the ante.
Morally and politically, I think we need to join France.
Morally, because Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes. Their government talks the language of ethnic cleansing and I have met with our own medics out there who describe the most chilling and distressing scenes of calculated brutality against women and children.
Politically, a Commons vote will be engineered in September on recognition and we will lose it if we’re not ahead of it. There are no circumstances in which people like me or Shabana could abstain or vote against, for example. Conference will be a sea of Palestinian flags and the moderates will be waving them.
We need to be leading the charge on this. The alternative is being dragged there with enormous damage to Keir, the govt and the party.
I’ve never been a shrinking violent on Israel. I’ve supported LFI for over 20 years. Our sister party, Haaretz, and progressives are clear about what’s being done in their name and they oppose it.
I appreciate these things are always more complicated than they appear to those of us who aren’t up close as you are and I also appreciate how much Keir and David are giving to this personally.
But it is what it is. We need to lead, not follow.
[24/07/2025, 23:11:47] Lord Mandelson: I can see all this but I am worried that such a gesture now could blow a 2 SS out of the water if Israel decided that unilateral recognition justified further WB annexation which the US would be powerless to stop or reverse. That would be the end of it.
So I think we need to employ practical means to get a 2SS, not quickly I grant but realistically [written by Mandelson after almost two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza]. The PA with reform and new leadership can advance this with Arab/US/European support. The alternative is a further deadlocked death spiral on an even greater scale than now.
[24/07/2025, 23:12:10] Wes Streeting: Israel is doing it anyway.
[24/07/2025, 23:12:39] Wes Streeting: This is rogue state behaviour. Let them pay the price as pariahs with sanctions applied to the state, not just a few ministers.
But Mandelson is far from unique in Streeting’s circle. His former office manager Sam Gould was convicted of child sex offences. One of his closest associates and now fellow MP Jas Athwal was accused of “serious” sexual assault, and the allegations remain murky. Streeting’s colleague Ivor Caplin was arrested in January 2025 in a paedophile sting. His other colleague Conor McGinn has just been charged with sex offences.
At what point does a coincidence become a pattern – one that releasing a few direct messages can’t mask?
As the @solutionsilford X account commented:
Wes Streeting “never knew” about Conor McGinn. Never knew about Ivor Caplin. Never knew about Ivan Lewis. Never knew about Sam Gould. Never knew about Peter Mandelson. Either the most incurious man in Labour… or taking the public for fools.
Featured image via the Canary