The government has released the first tranche of documents relating to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as the UK's ambassador to Washington, comprising 147 pages from a mass of information believed to total several hundred thousand pages.
The release follows a long-running campaign for transparency over the former peer's selection for the diplomatic post, and his subsequent removal from it. Mandelson has previously denied any wrongdoing, and his lawyers have indicated that he does not intend to make any further statement at this time.
What the documents reveal is limited by their number: they represent only a fraction of the total material held. The files are said to cover the process of appointment and dismissal, but their full contents have yet to be scrutinised in detail.
What remains unknown is far larger. The bulk of the information has still not been published, and key questions about the political and diplomatic considerations behind Mandelson's rise and fall in Washington remain unanswered.
The release marks a step towards greater accountability, but with hundreds of thousands of pages still withheld, the full picture of what happened is far from complete.
