EXCL: Cabinet Office is understood to hold number of text and email exchanges between Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney, despite theft of former chief of staff’s phone in October last year.
The whereabouts of McSweeney’s messages with Mandelson has been under intense scrutiny since it was reported his work device was stolen shortly after Mandelson was sacked as US ambassador.
McSweeney did not disclose he was Keir Starmer’s chief of staff when he reported the theft, according to a transcript released in highly unorthodox move by Met Police, which said it wanted to correct misreporting of the incident.
But not all of the correspondence has been lost - and a tranche is expected to be publicly released as part of Mandelson files in coming weeks. I’ll talk about this more on @itvpeston tonight.