After 83 days of waiting, the government has finally released the second tranche of files on the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador to Washington. The first tranche was already heavy on the filler, but the latest set of documents takes it to a whole new level. It features an incredible amount of seemingly pointless material: Mandelson’s resignation letter (8 times), pages of Microsoft Teams notifications, and the transcript of an ABC Trump interview. Today, Helen MacNamara and Cleo Watson dissect the files, picking out the parts that do reveal something– like how Peter Mandelson operated behind the scenes. New episodes of In The Room drop every week. Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.