A man has been arrested in connection with the theft of a mobile phone belonging to Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff, in a case that has raised serious questions about transparency at the heart of Downing Street.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed to The Times that a 28-year-old man was detained on Wednesday 29 April at an address in Peckham on suspicion of handling stolen goods. He is suspected of receiving the phone after it was stolen and attempting to sell it on. A Scotland Yard spokesperson was clear that he is “not suspected of any involvement in the original theft.” The man was taken into custody and subsequently bailed. The phone itself has not been recovered.
The device was allegedly stolen from Mr McSweeney in Belgrave Road, Pimlico on 20 October 2025. The case took on significant political weight when it emerged that the phone may have contained messages relating to the controversial appointment of Lord Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the United States — correspondence that would ordinarily have been subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
Those messages are now feared lost. Downing Street’s security team remotely wiped the device after the theft, prompting accusations from opposition MPs of a deliberate cover-up — claims Sir Keir Starmer has denied. Mr McSweeney, a long-standing ally of Lord Mandelson, resigned in February amid the mounting controversy surrounding the affair.
The investigation itself has not been without its complications. Scotland Yard initially closed the case after Mr McSweeney provided officers with the wrong location for the theft. The Met reopened the inquiry last month, according to The Telegraph, amid renewed public and political pressure over the circumstances of the incident.
The Telegraph has also revealed that detectives intend to interview Downing Street officials as part of the widened investigation. Officers are expected to ask whether No 10 or the Cabinet Office retained tracking data that could have been used to locate the device in the immediate aftermath of the theft. Investigators may also question members of Mr McSweeney’s own team to corroborate his account of events on the night in question.
