What we may – or may not – see in the filespublished at 13:57 GMT
Damian Grammaticas
Political correspondent
A word of caution about what we are getting today.
These documents won’t paint the full, final picture of the saga of Lord Mandelson’ appointment as US ambassador, his actions, and those of the prime minister too.
We should get messages, emails and other documents from when Peter Mandelson was being considered for the post and offered it, including those produced as part of his vetting process.
But we won’t get ones from the time after that, when he was in Washington. They’ll come later.
There’s a lot to collect and prepare. A parliamentary committee is approving what can be redacted or withheld, for reasons of government or diplomatic security. That all takes time.
And the Metropolitan Police have asked that some things are not published, as a precaution, while they conduct their own investigation. We know that includes correspondence between Downing Street and Lord Mandelson during his vetting, with follow-up questions for him and his answers, which won’t be coming today.
Those will only be made public when the police give the go-ahead.
Those documents may prove key when it comes to making final evaluations about the actions of Sir Keir and Lord Mandelson. Who knew what, when, matters.
As a reminder – the documents just landed. We’re beginning to go through them now, so stay with us.
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