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Mandelson lobbied hard for advisory firm after Labour victory, papers show | Peter Mandelson

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Peter Mandelson, as president of his then advisory firm Global Counsel, lobbied hard for ministers to attend his events and to meet his firm’s staff in the months following Labour’s general election win, newly released documents reveal.

Emails and WhatsApp exchanges show how active the Labour peer was in the wake of the election to work his contacts within government to the potential advantage of both his company and his then campaign to be chancellor of Oxford University.

Just a few days after the 2024 general election, Mandelson, a Labour peer, sent a WhatsApp message to Spencer Livermore, the financial secretary to the Treasury, in which he asked him for lunch.

Lord Livermore, a former director of political strategy in Downing Street under Gordon Brown, accepted. Mandelson suggested the meeting be held “away from HMT [the Treasury]”. The exchange suggests a Global Counsel employee was also going to be invited.

A few days later, Mandelson also emailed Patrick Vallance, the new science minister, after apparently seeing him the previous evening.

In an email from his Global Counsel address, entitled “Economic change”, Mandelson provided Vallance with a series of reflections on his own time as a minister.

Two months later, Mandelson sent Vallance a further email inviting him to attend a panel event on research and innovation that he intended to hold in Oxford in late October or early November.

Mandelson was running for chancellor of Oxford at the time but he told Vallance that it was not a “campaign event as such” but “would be an attempt to stimulate interest in the subject”.

Vallance responded: “Could we do it after the election of the new chancellor so that it doesn’t get seen as part of that process?”

Mandelson also emailed the new trade minister, Douglas Alexander, who served in Tony Blair’s government, on 22 July, introducing him to a Global Counsel employee. That had followed a meeting between Mandelson and Alexander the previous day, a WhatsApp record suggests.

“As Douglas is now going to try and push trade policy up hill on behalf of our great nation, I really think you two should meet and talk asap. Over to you,” Mandelson emailed.

Alexander responded: “Peter, thanks for the introduction”. He added, in a direct message to the unnamed Global Counsel employee, that he would “email you separately to find a slot that suits”.

A WhatsApp exchange confirmed that the meeting took place. “Seeing [redacted] this afternoon for a proper teach in,” Alexander wrote. “Thanks for the introduction”.

Mandelson chased up: “Did you talk to [redacted] okay?”

Alexander responded: “Yes, thank you. On Wednesday afternoon. It was the single most enlightening conversation I’ve had in the last month on trade so I see why you hold in such high regard. Many thanks again for the introduction”.

“Good,” responded Mandelson. “Happy to help further.”

In October 2024, Mandelson also emailed Alexander a lecture on a “High investment economy”.

In September that year, Mandelson also emailed Sarah Jones, an industry minister, from his Global Counsel account asking her to confirm that she would be able to attend a roundtable to discuss the government’s “clean energy mission”.

“I am keen to bring together a group of interesting and, hopefully, lively people to discuss this opportunity and challenge,” Mandelson wrote. The minister did not immediately respond.

A Global Counsel “senior associate” sent four emails chasing up the minister in which they wrote variously that “Lord Mandelson has asked me to follow up” and asking whether “she has had time to consider the invitation”.

The files are part of a vast tranche of data that MPs voted to release in February relating to Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador including texts with ministers and senior officials.

Members of the House of Lords can have financial interests in organisations involved in parliamentary lobbying on behalf of clients but are prohibited from “offering parliamentary advice or services to clients, directly and indirectly”.

Global Counsel, whose clients have reportedly included TikTok, Palantir and the energy and mining firm Shell amd Anglo American, was founded by Mandelson and his former aide Benjamin Wegg-Prosser in 2010.

Mandelson resigned as a director of Global Counsel in May 2024 but remained as president until January 2025 when he took up his short-lived role as the UK’s ambassador in Washington.

The company went into administration in February, following the disclosures about Mandelson’s friendship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.



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UK summer could be warmer than normal with more heatwaves forecast

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The UK could see a warmer-than-average summer with the potential for more heatwaves, according to latest forecasts.

The Met Office released its three-month summer outlook on 1 June – the first day of meteorological summer – citing higher-than-normal chances of hotter weather during the month.

And for the whole summer – which runs through to the end of August – the outlook suggests “an increased chance of heatwaves and heat-related impacts”.

It comes after a late spring heatwave saw temperature records shattered across the UK.

A new all-time May record of 35.1C was set in Kew Gardens, London, replacing the previous record of 32.8C from 1944.

Yellow and amber heat health alerts were also issued for the first time this year.

Now, long-range forecasts from the Met Office and MeteoGroup – the latter being providers of BBC Weather data – suggest the summer ahead will bring the risk of additional heatwaves.

A “few notable high temperature spikes” are also possible according to MeteoGroup.

They also go on to say that “above-average temperatures” are expected for each of the months of June, July and August, and “significant bursts” of heat are expected in the UK, and across Europe.

But, according to the Met Office, the higher than average temperatures forecast comes as having a hotter summer is now twice as likely than the reference averaging period of 1991-2020, consistent with our warming climate.



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Midterm primaries 2026 live: results and reaction as six states including California and Iowa cast ballots | US midterm elections 2026

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Lucy Campbell

Millions of voters across the country are heading to the polls today in crucial primaries in a slew of key gubernatorial, Senate and House races.

Here’s a quick rundown of what we’re watching:

California
Voters are casting ballots on who should lead the nation’s most populous state (and the world’s fourth largest economy), where there is no clear leader among candidates vying to advance in the race to succeed term-limited Democratic governor Gavin Newsom. The race for Los Angeles mayor is also on the ballot, along with a series of high-stakes US House contests in the state’s newly redrawn congressional districts – which are set to play an outsized and potentially decisive role in the battle for power in Washington in November’s midterm elections. My colleague Lauren Gambino has more:

Iowa
Per my colleague Chris Stein, with Trump’s approval ratings deep underwater, gas prices high and historical political trends favoring the party out of power, Democrats this year are considering a comeback in Iowa, putting the state at the center of their campaigns to win back control of both the US House and the Senate. That effort for a “once-in-a-generation” breakthrough in the GOP-dominated state is being led by pro-hunting Democrat Rob Sand, who is running for governor. Chris wrote about him below. Democrats also believe they have a shot at winning three of the state’s US House seats and a competitive chance at securing a US Senate seat, where the GOP frontrunner recently called Trump’s war on Iran a “political liability”.

New Jersey
One of this year’s most closely watched House midterms will take place in the battleground district currently represented by now-infamous Republican Tom Kean Jr, who has drawn public scrutiny and concern after missing more than 100 House votes due to an undisclosed illness. Voters are deciding which Democrat will run against him in November – and the seat is a must-win for the party. The frontrunner, veteran army trauma surgeon and political newcomer Adam Hamawy, has secured endorsements from the likes of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. My colleague Joseph Gedeon has more:

New Mexico
Contests in the state include primaries for congressional seats, a US Senate seat and a long list of statewide offices, but the governor’s race is the main event. Deb Haaland, who was Joe Biden’s interior secretary, is running for the Democratic nomination, which could put her on a historic path for Native American leaders.

Montana
In Montana, a five-way Democratic fight is under way for the retiring Republican senator’s seat. Independent Seth Bodnar, former president of the University of Montana, is outraising them all at the moment but they’re refusing to step aside, Politico reports this morning.

South Dakota
The race is on for state governor, Sioux Falls mayor, a US Senate and House seat, a Republican primary for local lawmakers. The incumbent GOP governor Larry Rhoden faces three primary challengers in his first run for a full term. He stepped up into the role from the lieutenant governorship when the former governor, the since-ousted Kristi Noem, left to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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Key events

Alabama can use a redrawn congressional map that eliminates one of the state’s two majority-Black districts in this year’s midterm elections, the US supreme court ruled in a 6-3 decision today.

My colleague Sam Levine has the full story:

The court’s emergency ruling is the most consequential decision it had issued since its landmark ruling in late April that struck down a critical provision of the Voting Rights Act. In that case, Louisiana v Callais, the court’s majority made it nearly impossible to win Voting Rights Act claims, saying that plaintiffs had to prove intentional discrimination. But on 26 May, a three-judge panel said the map Alabama wants to use for this year’s midterm was enacted with discriminatory intent.

But in an unsigned opinion on Tuesday, the court’s conservative justices said the panel had failed to properly reconsider the case in light of the Callais decision and other recent cases weakening the Voting Rights Act.

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‘Plea for calm ignored’ and ‘Arrest that outraged nation’

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The headline on the front page of the Daily Star reads: “Arrest that outraged nation”.

Under the headline “Arrest that outraged nation”, the Daily Star reports that a police officer involved in the arrest of Nowak quit after bodycam footage emerged which shows the student, handcuffed after being wrongly accused of a racist attack, repeatedly saying “I’ve been stabbed” to officers, one of whom replies: “Don’t think you have mate.”



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