Wes Streeting has said he felt he was “hitting up against a brick wall” when he tried to raise concerns about the war in Gaza inside government, after private WhatsApp messages from Peter Mandelson disclosed that the former health secretary was dismissed as “hysterical” and accused of suffering an “early mid-life crisis”.
The messages, released as part of a huge document dump triggered by a parliamentary humble address motion, show Mandelson – who was later sacked as US ambassador over his links to Jeffrey Epstein – venting to Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden about Streeting’s lobbying on Gaza in July 2025. Mandelson wrote that he had received “a wild long hysterical message from Wes about Israel” and that it “reflects pretty badly on his maturity”. He later described Streeting’s intervention as “pathetic”.
Streeting, who was health secretary at the time, had circulated a 22-page dossier to the cabinet containing graphic images of children with acute malnutrition and amputated limbs, alongside the eyewitness testimony of three doctors – including two surgeons from prominent London hospitals – who had worked under Israeli bombardment in Gaza. One doctor reported operating on up to a dozen children a day, many of them screaming in pain because there were no available analgesics. The same medic said that half of all casualties coming in were children, and all three doctors stated they had never seen such extensive trauma on young children in their years of working in war zones.
The dossier, which Streeting later said was intended to ensure “the war without witnesses” did not go unseen at the highest levels of government, was part of a broader push by the then health secretary for the UK to take a more forceful stance on the conflict. At the time, Prime Minister Keir Starmer had described the situation in Gaza as a “humanitarian catastrophe”, and the UN-backed IPC mechanism confirmed famine in August 2025, with the Gaza Ministry of Health reporting more than 66,000 deaths. The UK government had already announced a £60 million aid package in July 2025 to support healthcare, food and water, including funding for UK-Med field hospitals that had treated over 500,000 Gazans, and had committed to medically evacuating a limited number of critically ill children to NHS hospitals. By the end of October 2025, 260 individuals had been supported to leave Gaza.
Mandelson’s private rebuke
The WhatsApp exchange between Mandelson and McFadden, released as part of the documents relating to Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador, also contains wider criticisms of the government. Mandelson described Starmer’s Downing Street as “beleaguered and bereft” and said the prime minister “lacks verve, as does the cabinet as a whole”. In another message, McFadden told Mandelson that at almost every meeting he attended, Labour MPs were asking: “Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?” – adding that they were “asking the wrong questions”.
The released documents also show that Mandelson was granted access to highly classified government information before completing formal security vetting. He was appointed in December 2024 and sacked in September 2025 after revelations about his links to Jeffrey Epstein. In messages with McFadden, Mandelson speculated that Starmer might not survive a rebellion over welfare cuts, and described the prime minister’s leadership style as “advance/buckle/advance/buckle”.
Streeting hits back
In a statement following the release of the messages, Streeting said he was “horrified by the war in Gaza” and stressed that his efforts had been conducted “behind the scenes” with moral urgency. “I wasn’t by any means the only cabinet minister pushing for action, but we often felt like we were hitting up against a brick wall,” he said. “Our concerns and motives were dismissed.”
Streeting insisted that his position was not a “one-sided reaction”, pointing to his long record: he visited Israel as the first shadow cabinet minister to do so after the October 7 attacks, met survivors, and had previously visited the West Bank and called for sanctions on Israeli settlements as a backbencher. He said he had “always supported Israel’s right to defend itself and Palestinians’ right to a state of their own.” He expressed pride that the government eventually recognised a Palestinian state, but added: “We took far too long to get there.”
The UK’s recognition of a Palestinian state was announced in September 2025, conditional on Israel agreeing to a ceasefire, allowing UN humanitarian aid and taking steps towards peace. The government had already joined a joint statement from numerous countries in July 2025 that condemned the Israeli government’s aid delivery model, the killing of civilians seeking aid – with more than 800 reported deaths – and the denial of essential humanitarian assistance. The statement also opposed proposals for forced displacement of the Palestinian population.
Separate private messages released in February 2026 – also disclosed by Streeting, who said he had “nothing to hide” – showed that he had gone further in his criticisms of Israel. In those communications, he described Israeli actions as “war crimes” and “rogue state behaviour”, and said the country should “pay the price as pariahs, with sanctions applied to the state, not just a few ministers”. He also passed on medics’ accounts of “calculated brutality against women and children” and told Mandelson that the UK “needs to lead, not follow” on recognising a Palestinian state, adding: “Symbolism matters against the backdrop of what we’re seeing.” Streeting said he had informed Home Secretary Yvette Cooper of those comments at the time.
Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, asked about the leaked messages on Tuesday, described them as “embarrassing” but said they were in the public domain because the government had complied with the humble address motion passed by MPs in February. He noted that his own phone, which contained messages with Mandelson, had been stolen on 15 October 2025, and that he had reported the incident to the police. Thomas-Symonds said there were no exchanges with Mandelson on his work phone. On McFadden’s comment about Labour MPs focusing on taxing to pay benefits, Thomas-Symonds said that was “not my experience” and emphasised that McFadden’s view was about giving people opportunities rather than benefits, pointing to a recent report by former health secretary Alan Milburn on tackling youth unemployment.
