Good morning. On Monday, Keir Starmer told MPs that officials had failed to inform him Peter Mandelson had been refused security vetting before being appointed ambassador to Washington. Yesterday, the ousted Foreign Office permanent secretary Olly Robbins gave his own account in parliament.
Not only did Robbins’s retelling differ from the prime minister’s version, it also included further damaging claims about the pressure his department had been under from the Downing Street operation to confirm the New Labour grandee in the role. Robbins, who gave two and a half hours of evidence to the foreign affairs select committee, also revealed he had been under pressure to appoint another Starmer aide to a senior diplomatic role – while keeping the foreign secretary firmly out of the loop.
