Peter Mandelson ‘went tonto’ as he raged at Downing Street’s chaotic efforts to secure a ministerial ‘red box’ for Donald Trump, newly-published emails have shown.
The release of the latest tranche of Government files related to Lord Mandelson’s spell as US ambassador has revealed No10’s frantic scramble to arrange the gift.
Mr Trump is said to have wanted a ‘red dispatch box with the gold crest and lettering’ to mimic the official boxes carried by UK ministers, according to the emails.
Ahead of the US President’s state visit to Britain in September last year, Whitehall officials were shown to have devoted considerable efforts to obtaining the present.
The documents published on Monday also showed how Lord Mandelson intervened in an apparent complaint about the time being taken to secure the gift.
In an email to Keir Starmer’s then-chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, in late August 2025, the disgraced peer compared the situation to TV’s The Thick of It.
He added he had ‘gone tonto on this’ in the heavily-redacted message to the Prime Minister’s top aide.
The disgraced peer ended up resigning just days before Mr Trump’s visit to Britain, in September 2025, following fresh revelations about his links to Jeffrey Epstein.
Peter Mandelson ‘went tonto’ as he raged at Downing Street’s faltering efforts to secure a ministerial ‘red box’ for Donald Trump, newly-published emails have shown
Mr Trump is said to have wanted a ‘red dispatch box with the gold crest and lettering’ to mimic the official boxes carried by UK ministers, according to the emails
In an email to Keir Starmer’s then-chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, in late August 2025, Lord Mandelson compared the situation to TV’s The Thick of It
The latest tranche of Mandelson files also included a chain of messages between Foreign Office and Downing Street officials discussing the red box
In the final weeks of his time as US ambassador, Lord Mandelson was revealed to have emailed Mr McSweeney on 26 August that year about Mr Trump’s proposed gift.
He wrote: ‘The saga goes on. See Olly email. This is like something out of Thick of it.
‘We are now facing the red box being presented by [redacted] after [redacted] with [redacted]. I have gone tonto on this.’
In an earlier email, on 15 August 2025, Lord Mandelson had told Mr McSweeney that a red box with Mr Trump’s name and cypher ‘fits the bill’ for a gift.
The latest tranche of Mandelson files also included a chain of messages between Foreign Office and Downing Street officials discussing the red box.
Olly Robbins, who was then the top civil servant at the Foreign Office, wrote on 26 August 2025: ‘As I’m sure you know, is clear that one of the gifts that would mean the most to the President would be a red dispatch box with the gold crest and lettering mimicking a UK Government Ministerial box but with ‘President of the United States’ inscribed upon it.’
A letter, dated 10 July 2025, between Barrow, Hepburn and Gale – the manufacturer of ministerial boxes – and Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ private office revealed the request for a red box came from ‘persons of influence close to President Trump’.
It also showed how discussions over the possible gift had taken place as early as February that year, not long after Mr Trump had begun his second term in the White House.
The July 2025 letter shared concerns that ‘a presentation made on the fringes by anyone other than the Prime Minister or the monarch during a state visit would be potentially embarrassing both to the country and the office of the Prime Minister’.
It added: ‘For the sake of clarity I must make the distinction between the office per-se and the individual personality because over the many years, we have carefully avoided appearing to endorse anyone’.
The manufacturer also outlined how producing a bespoke box for Mr Trump ‘has already been designed and been met with approval’ and it would take ‘8-10 weeks’ for production.
Emails in August 2025 revealed confusion among staff at the British Embassy in Washington DC as to whether the box had been manufactured or not.
The Treasury was accused of having ‘sat on’ the issue ‘since February’.
In a message to Mr McSweeney on 27 August 2025, Lord Mandelson wrote: ‘What the attachment says is that Whitehall has known about [redacted] since February and it was confirmed in early July and nobody had the wit to say anything. What incompetence.’
On 28 August, No10 officials discussed trying to source a red box ‘from a different supplier’ in their last-ditch efforts to secure the gift.
