All The British Government Does Is Ask ‘Who Can We Tax to Give Benefits to Others’, Mandelson-Epstein Scandal Papers Reveal

A document dump released by the British government because of the Peter Mandelson-Jeffrey Epstein scandal has revealed extensive private conversations among top Labour figures, including one that reveals tunnel-vision obsession with tax raids to pay for endless welfare giveaways.

Internal messages from inside the British Labour government have once again revealed the remarkable perspicacity with which select top figures are able to assess and recognise their own shortcomings and articulate among themselves — when they believe they are speaking in private confidence — precisely what their critics observe in public. Among over 1,500 pages of government text messages and emails released as part of the long tail fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein emails released in the United States, which brought down the British ambassador Peter Mandelson, is a remarkable smoking gun of an exchange where a top Labour figure admits the only real driving force of the government is endless tax extraction to prop up the welfare state.

In a conversation between Peter Mandelson, during his time as ambassador, and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Pat McFadden, days after a punishing election defeat in May 2025, the pair discuss internal debates within the governing Labour Party. Reflecting on the mood, McFadden messaged Mandelson to say he had observed a “lot of manoeuvring here this week… Doesn’t feel good for Keir”.

Responding, Peter Mandelson, while he apparently enjoyed significant influence from Washington over the workings of the British government back home, led with criticism of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and said: “Keir is not leading from the front… does he even realise? The [Parliamentary Labour Party, I] gather is in mutinous state”. McFadden replied in turn: “Yes. Every meeting I have is ‘who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others’. They’re asking the wrong questions”.

This revelation of the state of the most senior Labour ministers by a consummate insider is politically radioactive for Labour, given it confirms some of the very most damaging accusations made about it by its political rivals; that its rapacious appetite for tax revenue to fund the welfare state is in part a result of open borders and government failures, while at the same time destroying the economy.

The Conservatives moved quickly to capitalise on this obvious truth being admitted by a Labour mask-slip moment, stating on social media that: “Labour’s Welfare Secretary admitted to Peter Mandelson what he won’t tell you. Labour raised your taxes to pay for more benefits”. Party leader Kemi Badenoch added in her own remark: “They are no longer the Labour Party, they are the Welfare Party. It doesn’t matter who is in charge of these people, the party for Benefits Street will tax us all into poverty to pay for more welfare.”

More revelations are being discovered in the over 1,500 pages of messages, but evidently, much has yet to be released, if it will ever see the light of day at all. Mandelson himself refused to hand over his personal mobile phone, and it appears the government either couldn’t or wouldn’t compel him to do so. Indeed, an internal email released in this tranche reveals the Cabinet Office requested Mandelson’s phone, but he “declined to comply with this request. The Government has no further recourse to search the personal devices of Peter Mandelson”.

Further messages are missing because at least two key figures in the heart of government claim their mobile phones were stolen, so, again, the messages contained therein have not been published.

Morgan McSweeney’s allegedly stolen phone has been known — and widely speculated upon, given the convenient timing of its disappearance — for weeks, but today we learn that Nick Thomas-Symonds, the ‘Minister for European Union Relations,’ has also reported his phone as stolen.

Speculation and conspiracy theories aside, it isn’t beyond belief that government ministers’ mobile phones are regularly stolen in London, given the city is suffering a petty crime epidemic. In this bizarre case, it may be that one government failure is covered up by another.