McSweeney's missing Mandelson messages

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0:37And your medication is delivered directly to your home in discreet packaging. So your experience stays private from start to finish. Do your research. Ask the right questions. Then visit orderlymeds.com slash podcast for an exclusive offer. Again, that's orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Individual results may vary. Not medical advice. Eligibility required. See site for details. I understand that the Cabinet Office does have some messages between Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney. Potentially vital messages between McSweeney and Mandelson might not be available because the phone was nicked about three or four weeks after Mandelson had been fired as our ambassador.

1:23That's a bit convenient, isn't it?

1:28This is a Global Player original podcast. Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister loves to hide behind legal process. I wonder what a director of public prosecutions would make of the defence. Sorry, I can't produce my WhatsApps. My phone's been stolen. That's Kemi Baden-Ock in the House of Commons this lunchtime. And if you haven't got a clue what she's talking about, She's talking about Keir Starmer's former Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, who appears to have lost his mobile phone or had it stolen just weeks after Peter Mandelson had left as Britain's ambassador. Funny that, isn't it? Welcome to the News Agents.

2:16The News Agents. It's John and today I have been abandoned by Lewis Goodall and Emily Maitlis who are off in other places but I'm going to be joined by Agi Chombray, LBC's Deputy Political Editor. And it's perfectly possible this story may come at you as something completely new because let's face it we've all been obsessed over the past few weeks by what has been happening in Iran and the Middle East and the unfolding kind of drama and chaos of all of that. But essentially, we know about the Mandelson files and that the government pledged to release all information concerning the communications that took place in government between ministers and Peter Mandelson about his appointment as our ambassador to Washington.

3:03then it emerged that Morgan McSweeney the hugely powerful chief of staff who had been instrumental in persuading Keir Starmer to appoint Mandelson as our ambassador had lost his telephone his mobile phone apparently had it stolen while he was in Westminster by a guy on a bike not that unusual in and of itself rang the police and told them that his phone had been taken and that therefore potentially vital messages between McSweeney and Mandelson might not be available because the phone was nicked about three or four weeks after Mandelson had been fired as our ambassador and that's leading some inevitably to raise the question well that's a bit convenient isn't it well let's talk to aggie now about all of this and is that timeline broadly correct that's exactly it so so there was a story that came out on sunday in the sun on sunday that morgan mcsweeney had had his phone stolen the date was at that stage a bit unclear but as you say that date was october the 20th and the reason that everyone thought this was an extraordinary story was because apparently there were all of these explosive text messages between Morgan McSweeney, the former chief of staff, and Peter Mandelson.

4:30And of course, we thought we might be set to see some of those messages because of that humble address that was put down by the Conservatives and won by the Conservatives in February of this year. And that's basically this arcane parliamentary procedure that means that all of these sort of all the communications to do with that appointment are going to be published. And it seemed like for a while when the story was published that, OK, maybe we won't see any of those text messages at all. And what we now understand, because this story has developed in the last few days, is yes, that phone was stolen on October the 20th.

5:04We know because we've actually got the transcript of the police conversation between Morgan McSweeney and the police when it was stolen. But also we know that we are still going to see, I think some of those text messages because the cabinet office does still have some of those WhatsApp messages between Morgan Sweeney, the former chief of staff and Peter Mandelson. And so, again, the call goes through to the police and I've read the whole transcript of the call in which Morgan McSweeney at no point in the call to. I mean, it sounds like it's a 999 call by the which emergency service do you want?

5:41I think it starts with. What is the nature of the emergency, they ask. At no point does Morgan McSweeney say, guys, you ought to know I am the prime minister's chief of staff and there could be highly sensitive data on this phone. No, he I mean, he goes he goes close to it by saying it's a government phone. But no, he just says, hello, someone's just robbed my phone. The police say, did they take it from you just now? He says, yes, he's on a bike. He's come onto the pavement to grab my phone, cycled off on a bike. and then there's a bit of back and forth on where it exactly happened so morgan mcsweeney says on the phone call it's happened on belgrave street in westminster for some reason the police then get it confused and they do go back to him at one stage to ascertain where exactly the location was but there's some confusion and for some reason the police then note it down and do write down the wrong location and so basically this isn't really investigated they say they did look at the cctv they say they actually tried to call him a couple of times the next day but essentially the case is closed and I think now it is actually being re-looked at now they have the correct location but effectively no Morgan McSweeney does not say there is sensitive communications on this phone and also it seems like from this transcript as well I don't know whether you picked this up that the phone may have been open he was sort of texting someone in the Times reported this too he was texting someone or catching up on messages when the person rode past so it could have been open and accessible for them to read all of those messages and and see all of those contacts yes so So there are security concerns and you would think that would be something you would flag in the call.

7:13I mean, you know, look, I'm keeping a fully open mind on this because, you know, one, it's not that unusual in London, dare I say it, for people to come up behind you on an electric bike wearing a balaclava and nick your phone. I mean, you know, it's it's been kind of there's been a scourge of that over the past year or two in London. So that may be possible. But you would think that even in your kind of frazzled state, oh, my God, my phone's just been nicked. that, you know, you're Morgan McSweeney, you're the chief of staff to the prime minister. You would want the police to know that this is serious.

7:44I think you may, I think you may well. I mean, he does sound, obviously it's only a transcript. We don't have the audio of the call. He does sound a bit frazzled. And the Times too did report that he went after this guy, tried to get the phone. The guy got away. He was on a bike. So of course he got away. But he does sound kind of a bit frazzled. Of course, his phone was just taken. And he's and I said there was this confusion about the location, too. So maybe maybe that is the explanation. As I say, he does say it's a government phone. But you would think, you know, if I had my phone stolen, I would probably say, well, by the way, I'm a journalist.

8:19So there's some there's some numbers on that phone. I don't think they would remotely care, but they probably would have cared a little more when he said I had he said I'm the chief of staff at number 10. So I want to play you a clip now of Steve Reid, the housing secretary, who was on with Lewis at the weekend, where he was trying to insist that there's nothing to this. And he says something which I think we now know to be factually inaccurate. Morgan McSweeney's phone has disappeared with many of his messages to Lord Manelson on it and no backup exists. You do understand why many people will find that very convenient.

8:55out. Well, as I understand it, that was a theft that was reported months before the whole Mandelson situation even began. No backup. Prime Minister's Chief of Staff has no backup of his messages. Well, I don't know what he does or doesn't have in terms of... Doesn't seem ideal, does it? But his phone was stolen and he reported it at the time and it was well in advance of anything happening around the Mandelson situation. I remember when Boris Johnson's phone, all the WhatsApp mysteriously disappeared on that. I remember Labour shadow ministers being pretty incredulous. Yes. And that happened after he had been required to provide it morgan reported the theft of his phone months i think it was maybe even over a year before the whole situation arose so there's no comparison so months before the mandelson situation appeared well i mean i can see how you can finesse that but it was three weeks after or four weeks after mandelson had been fired as our ambassador and questions were swirling about how on earth was it that mandelson got the job as ambassador and what role did morgan mcsweeney play in it and unless we forget you know at that time there was headline after headline after headline about jeffrey epstein about the relationship that they had had too that was very very much in the news agenda at the time i think people in government are explaining it and you read out the transcript there but before the whole mandelson situation even began apparently he did mean the humble address that being the mandelson situation which was that when the firing gun was started for the investigation of gathering all the material of all the communications that had been made exactly and so that was in february that was february the 4th and he reported his phone nicked on october the 20th so technically i suppose that is factually correct where he said i think it was maybe even over a year that is just uh wrong however however you paint that picture.

10:49Right. There is something else as well, a question that arises in my mind about all of this. And it was sort of, I guess, framed best by the health secretary, West Streeting this morning on GMB. But look, it was quite convenient for Morgan McSweeney that his phone was reported because he can now say it was reported, but it was also massively convenient that it happened to disappear just at the point when at the time people were expecting that information to be asked for by the opposition. I guess that's plausible. But as you often reflect on your podcast, Ed, often in politics, there is the charge of conspiracy, but more often there's the cock-up.

11:34And I wonder whether in this case, this is more cock-up than conspiracy. I understand people's cynicism. I mean, look, in politics at the moment, if we tell people it's raising, they look up at the sky to see if it's true. Politicians are about as popular, in fact, less popular than traffic wardens and estate agents in this country at the moment. So I'm not surprised by the cynicism. But I would also not sit here and say that I assume deceit and deception. That's not my assumption. And one of the other things that Streeting went on to say in that interview was that, well, you know, you wouldn't be able to access my messages anyway because I have disappearing messages on.

12:15And if you don't use WhatsApp, there is this thing that you can set, whether it's every day the messages disappear or a week from a certain person. If I don't want to see Aggie Chombray's WhatsApp messages anymore, I can just set it to a day or a week or a month and they just automatically disappear. Now, West treating saying that he had that enabled on his phone. If government communications are just disappearing into the ether and irrecoverable. Isn't that quite an issue? Yeah, and really, I mean, I know that you speak to a lot of people within government and around government too. So many people have turned that on in recent weeks since this affair, which, you know, is, I suppose, unsurprising.

12:57But there are people who are, you know, who are extremely judgmental about it. I was speaking to a minister earlier and I said, what do you think about disappearing messages? And they said, I think no one should have disappearing messages. But lots, lots of people in and around government do. and the argument that government makes is that basically if you have disappearing messages on fine but you need to if you have any substantive conversation about government or anything like that you need to record it in some way so be that a screenshot writing it down emailing it to yourself i'm not sure how much people in government are actually doing that but that is what they are supposed to be doing and i think it is worth saying just speaking to some of those people this morning about a disappearing messages and b about the phone and the disappearance of the phone There are people in the Labour Party who have three different people use the word convenient to me.

13:45One minister saying a very convenient coincidence. Another one saying conveniently odd. Another one saying, well, he's gone now. So what can you do? But I think there are quite a lot of raised eyebrows about this on the Labour benches as well as the opposition. Because, you know, what happens in often in litigation or when there is something, you know, under the GDPR legislation about privacy and all the rest of it, you submit a data subject access request, which, you know, a law firm, if they were suing you or suing me for maybe libel, they could just ask for, I want to see all the communications within Global, say, that have gone on between Aguichon Bray and management and Aguichon Bray and John Sobel.

14:27And you have to supply those. It's very helpful if you've got disappearing messages on where those cannot be seen. But then you think, well, hang on, this is a government record. My other question, I guess, on all of this is that if Morgan McSweeney didn't, and we don't know whether Morgan McSweeney had disappearing messages on or not, the prosecution, and this is a completely different case, but the prosecution of Hugh Edwards, the newsreader, happened not because they found obscene images on his phone. they arrested someone who was sending and they knew that was being sent to Hugh Edwards' phone.

15:05And so therefore Hugh Edwards has got rid of his phone he didn't have the messages. But presumably if Peter Mandelson has kept hold of his phone those messages exist on Peter Mandelson's phone. Yeah, that's right. I mean if you have disappearing messages that sort of both parties then lose the messages. But specifically for Morgan McSweeney that's right. Anyone Morgan McSweeney was messaging including Peter Mandelson they would still have the messages unless, of course, he had on disappearing messages. I understand that the Cabinet Office does have some messages between Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney.

15:37I don't know whether that's from the Peter Mandelson side. I assume probably it's from the Morgan McSweeney side. And I guess this just adds to that corrosive sense of cynicism that so many people have. we heard Wes Streeting talking about there, that people have about politics and politicians. And you just feel that Kirsten Ammer, you know, has used up an awful lot of that over the course of the past year. From when he became prime minister, we were finding out about his suits and his glasses being bought for him, through to Mandelson, through to so many other things, where you think, oh, this really isn't good.

16:15And I think part of the reason that that has been so damaging for him is that Labour in opposition made such a song and dance about everything the Tories did. I mean, you heard Lewis referencing it with Steve Reid there, pointing out when Boris Johnson lost all of those thousands and thousands of messages over Covid. But I think because there were scandals, there were so many scandals when the Tories were in power and Labour made so much of them. I think there was something in Tony Blair's book when he said, when you're in opposition, sometimes you just need to let stuff go. I'm, of course, paraphrasing, but you need to let stuff go because when you're in government, there will always be problems.

16:49There will always be scandals. And if you have in opposition made a huge thing of them, then people will make a huge thing of them for you. And I'm not suggesting the suit or this is not a big scandal, but perhaps the way they handled those in opposition has made it worse for them. Aggie, brilliant to have you with us. Thank you. Now, I was being economical with the truth when I said Lewis Goodall was not here, because we can now hear him with Ibram Kendi, an author who's written about racism and the Great Replacement Theory.

17:23From a range of trusted voices and award-winning journalists. Good morning, I'm Nick Ferrari. It's time to get to your calls. Find out the latest news and hear every side of the story. But we're dealing with some people that I find to be very reasonable, very solid. We have a very serious chance of making a deal. The day on which almost all of the world recognized that Donald Trump is a deranged liar. So what on earth happens next? The fallout of the Iran war. Follow it live on LBC. Listen on our free global player app or the LBC app. When people turn to health care for weight loss, they're looking for real support.

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18:31The News Agents. Well, Ibram Kendi, Professor Kendi joins us now. Professor Kendi, thanks so much for joining us on the show. We have been enjoying, if that's the right word, your book immensely. It is fascinating, not least because it covers something that seems so central to our politics, perhaps unbelievably at the moment, and also explains perhaps what is going wrong with our politics. But let's just start with the idea itself, because perhaps mercifully, a lot of listeners, viewers actually won't really know about the Great Replacement Theory. Just give us actually a sort of potted history of what it is and where it comes from.

19:06Sure. So, well, first, Great Replacement Theory is a political theory that suggests these shadowy globalist elites are enabling peoples of color to come and displace the lives and even livelihoods of white people who apparently need authoritarian protection. And so when you hear terms like immigrants are invading the nation, you're hearing great replacement theory. When you hear ideas like diversity programs are anti-white, you're hearing great replacement theory. When you hear ideas like they're coming in poisoning the blood of the nation, you're hearing Great Replacement Theory. And this theory was named by a French novelist named Renaud Camus in 2010.

20:06But ideas are different than humans in that they can live for quite some time before they're named. So this idea really emerged in the late 19th century and has quietly shaped much of really Western history. And it's certainly reemerged in the last 20 years. And that's, it seems to me, to be the distinctive thing about the sort of modern incarnation of the theory, right? which is, it's not just saying, which, you know, you could imagine, you know, political actors speaking to anxiety about natural kind of demographic change, immigration taking place, and therefore there may be anxiety among, for want of a better word, the kind of indigenous population of any particular kind of polity.

20:54You can imagine a politician doing that, but this goes one step further, doesn't it? This is saying this isn't just kind of demographic change. It's not deliberate attempt by elites, shadowy elites, to replace the native population. It's a deliberate act. Exactly. And these great replacement theorists argue that not only are they coming to replace, but they're coming to take over. They're coming to take over the nation. It's imagine that they aren't just coming to take over, but they're also engaging, according to these theorists, in the genocide of white people in the most extreme sense. And so it's one thing to demonize immigrants or to demonize Muslims or to demonize Black people.

21:47It's yet another thing to say that they're coming to destroy you. And that is what great replacement theorists have said. And the reason why they've said that is because it then paves the way to for authoritarianism, because then an authoritarian politician can say to regular everyday people who are enraged or even fearful of the quote unquote great replacement, that I will be your protector. I will be your savior. Now, I need to create a police state. I need to do away with your civil liberties, your freedoms, your rights, but I can essentially protect you. It is extraordinary, I think, the extent to which these ideas, if not always the use of the term itself, have, you know, just in sort of my time in covering politics journalistically over the past, you know, 10, 15 years or so, have gone from something that would have been deeply, deeply fringe to actually, in many ways, quite central to a lot of the kind of intellectual currents, particularly on the kind of modern right in politics.

22:47I mean, I see this in British politics kind of all the time. You basically have not just, as I say, sort of speaking to anxieties around immigration or sort of demographic change, but, you know, leading politicians from, say, the Conservative Party actively saying things, you know, like we're being invaded. You know, these people don't have respect and will never have respect for British values. They will never be able to assimilate properly. They'll never be truly British, which is another form of the or sort of element of the theory. Why do you think it is or that it has become so much less fringe and so much less confined to the kind of outer eccentricities of politics?

23:24Well, this is a question I really seek to answer throughout the breadth of chain of ideas. But to give a few reasons, I think first and foremost, there have been a series of confusing or unclear historical events that has gripped Europe and frankly, even North America over the last 15 years from people trying to explain why the Great Recession happened. And great replacement theorists were like, this is this is coming out of the great replacement. You know, you're losing your jobs because those immigrants are taking your jobs. People trying to explain the European migrant crisis in 2015, in which that was another period in which these elected officials stated that these immigrants are not fleeing civil war in Syria and Afghanistan.

24:18They're actually coming here to take your resources, your jobs. And even more recently, with people struggling under the weight of inflation after Russia invaded Ukraine, also is a period in which these politicians capitalized on that historical event. So I try to document in Chain of Ideas how they're capitalizing on these specific events. But then you also have a situation in which their financiers, meaning the people funding these parties, are also creating media outlets, media outlets that are also spreading Great Replacement Theory, which has also been pivotal in its spread and its mainstream.

24:58I mean, it is an argument that is put forward by a lot of people, certainly in British politics. In fact, the leader of the Conservative Party right now, Kemi Badenok, is a woman of colour. She's a black woman. She is very, one of the things that most exercises her is this question about culture and whether some cultures are capable of assimilating into British society. Her argument is, is that this is, we shouldn't be seeking to build a multicultural society. It's fine to have a multi-ethnic society, but on a multicultural one. She has explicitly said, cited the argument you've just talked about, which is to say some cultures are inferior to others and therefore, and, you know, and incompatible with Western liberal values.

25:39Therefore, we shouldn't want those people. Do you see that as an example of the Great Replacement Theory? I do. And that's a racist idea, whether it's being expressed by a white politician, like a Nigel Farage, or even a black politician, you know, like the leader of the Conservative Party. And I think that anti-racist ideas recognize that the cultures are equals. But just to push back on that, Professor, I suppose if she were here, she would say, well, no, I don't think they are, because there are some cultures in the world that are deeply homophobic and deeply sexist and deeply illiberal. And it's not about what their race is, but I don't accept those cultural value systems.

26:24And I don't think we should accept those people from those countries in our countries. Is that racist or is it just a statement of obvious facts? Well, actually, what I would say is a culture is, let's say, made up of a series of traditions or even, let's say, we're talking about values. And I don't think any culture should be assessed or generalized based on one or two values. So a culture may, a particular culture, let's say, may have more homophobic values than another culture, but that's not representative of the entirety of the culture. Just like there's a human being who may be homophobic, but then when it comes to class, you know, they recognize they don't perceive poor people to be inferior to people who are elite.

27:12So I think it's important for us to not generalize individuals or cultures based on individual concepts. But is that racist? I mean, and that may well be true, but is that racist? It is. That's typically what's happened to Black people. So we typically, someone sees us acting negatively in one particular way, and then they generalize that to our whole personhood, and then they generalize that to Black people as a group, as opposed to saying in that particular individual way, I don't agree with that. as opposed to saying that person's entire culture is inferior, you can say that particular thing is something that I don't agree with.

27:56I mean, I suppose in a way you've alluded to this. One of the reasons in which presumably the idea itself and some of the ideas associated with it has become more central, and because I say it was such a kind of, and has been such historically, a sort of far-right fringe idea, at least of late, but has become more central is that so much of this presumably goes down to the fact that even now if we think about contemporary events, we seem to be living in an era of endless perma crisis. And not just perma crisis where people are looking for answers and thinking like, why are things as they are? But also, fundamentally, right, it's a conspiracy theory.

28:28It's a conspiracy theory and one of the oldest conspiracy theories going. And our age, our politics has become far more conspiratorial. Exactly. And people... And so, you know, this conspiracy theory of the Great Replacement lends itself certainly to our conspiratorial age. And it lends itself to more and more people distrusting elected officials, as studies show, distrusting the media, distrusting scholars. And so when you distrust particularly journalists and scholars and other people whose job it is to tell the truth, it creates a condition in which you then start to make truth for yourself.

29:15And you typically are more likely to do that through conspiracy theories. I mean, obviously this is happening. And as you write about in your book, this theory sort of manifests in different places and inevitably in some places will concentrate on particular people in Europe. It's a sort of particular preoccupation with regard to Muslims. It will be different in other places, including the United States. But in the US, I suppose it is hard to get away if we're thinking about why the idea has become so central. I mean, I suppose, and legitimized around the world, I suppose it is hard to get away from the fact that, you know, for basically 10 years now, on and off, the United States, the most important democracy in the world, has had a president who commonly talks about the idea, for example, of white genocide taking place.