Keir Starmer’s right-hand man commiserated with Peter Mandelson on the day he was sacked as US ambassador, leaked messages have revealed.
Darren Jones told the disgraced peer he was ‘so sorry’ he had been forced out over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr Jones, who oversaw the publication of the Mandelson files to parliament, told MPs that he had exchanged messages with the architect of New Labour but he no longer had access to them and so could not release them.
But a string of damaging messages between the two men have now been leaked to the Spectator magazine.
Lord Mandelson was sacked on September 11 last year following fresh revelations that he had backed Epstein over his conviction for child sex offences and urged him to fight for early release.
The Prime Minister said he was ‘angry’ with the Labour grandee for ‘lying’ about the true extent of his relationship with the notorious paedophile.
But Mr Jones, who was promoted to the cabinet just days earlier in the role of chief secretary to the PM, was quietly commiserating with the man who had helped guide his career.
In a private WhatsApp message sent that day, he told him: ‘You’ve been doing such a great job, and you worked wonders with Trump. I’m so sorry about today.’
Darren Jones said his messages to Mandelson had been lost, but they have now been leaked
Mr Jones apologised for his friendship with Mandelson but admitted it boosted his career
Mr Jones’s decision to praise Lord Mandelson after the revelations that saw him sacked threatens to do serious damage to a rising Labour star, one who has touted himself as a possible successor to Sir Keir.
Other messages, which were leaked to the Spectator magazine, will trigger awkward conversations with Cabinet colleagues.
After Lord Mandelson met with Rachel Reeves, he messaged Mr Jones to note that the Government’s growth plans were in the hands of the Chancellor, the then deputy PM Angela Rayner and the then business secretary Jonathan Reyonlds.
Mr Jones, who was Ms Reeves’s deputy at the Treasury at the time, replied: ‘It doesn’t fill you with confidence.’
In another, he criticised members of Mr Reynolds’s team over negotiations regarding the Port Talbot steel works, saying some were taking positions ‘because that’s what the unions want’.
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In a further discussion with Lord Mandelson about an expected reshuffle, Mr Jones said he was targeting Mr Reynolds’s job, adding: ‘Everyone fond of Jonny but perception that DBT (Department of Business and Trade) not firing on full cylinders.’
The messages were not contained in the Mandelson files released to parliament this week.
Mr Jones is understood to be one of a number of senior figures, alongside Sir Keir and Ms Reeves, who used the disappearing messages function on their phones to automatically delete their exchanges with Lord Mandelson and others.
He said on Wednesday that the ‘only other person who could release them is Mandelson,’ who has refused to hand over his phone to the parliamentary inquiry.
As rumours of the leak swirled round Westminster on Wednesday evening, Mr Jones offered a coded apology for his friendship with Lord Mandelson, which he acknowledged had boosted his career.
Tory frontbencher Alex Burghart told the Mail: ‘This makes a mockery of the government’s transparency process. It seems ministers have allowed messages to be deleted only for them to then appear in public. It is farcical.’
In the Commons, former victims minister Alex Davies-Jones accused the government of siding with the powerful instead of those who survived Epstein’s abuse.
She read out a powerful statement by US survivor Lisa Phillips who savaged the PM’s decision to appoint Lord Mandelson ‘when his association with Jeffrey Epstein had long been publicly known’.
Mr Jones later told MPs he had been moved by the intervention to apologise for his own friendship with the disgraced peer. He also offered to meet Ms Phillips and other victims who claim to have been snubbed by the PM.
He told MPs: ‘Did I consciously ignore the stories that followed Peter Mandelson, indeed know about many of them from many, many years ago? I don’t think that I did.
‘Did I ever ignore warnings that were put to me about Peter Mandelson? I didn’t receive any to do so.
‘But as I reflect on (Ms Davies-Jones’) speech, it made me think, did I, at best, subconsciously treat Peter Mandelson differently because I believe him to have influence and power within the Labour Party, and I think the answer to that question is yes, I did.
‘Have I benefited from that relationship and the time I’ve been an elected politician? I think in part the answer to that question is yes, I did, and for that I’d like to apologise to the House, to the victims, and commit to them doing something about it.’
The revelations are a potentially serious blow to his leadership ambitions.
They could also trigger further claims that the government has tried to cover up the full truth about the Mandelson scandal.
A string of ministers, including Sir Keir, are now known to have auto-deleted messages with Lord Mandelson, despite Cabinet Office guidance stating that ministers using disappearing messages must ensure that it ‘does not impact on your record keeping or transparency responsibilities.’
On Monday Mr Jones told MPs: ‘I do recall having some limited exchanges with Peter Mandelson over WhatsApp, including those I have already discussed in the media, but these conversations did not involve transacting Government business and were in line with official guidance on the use of non-corporate communications channels at the time.’
