Robert Peston@Peston
Olly Robbins’s testimony about how Lord Mandelson received vetting clearance to go to Washington as Britain’s ambassador is yet another blow to the perceived competence of the prime minister and his team.
These are the headlines.
1) The Cabinet office did not initially believe Mandelson needed to be vetted at all, but the foreign office insisted
2) Downing Street put enormous pressure on the Foreign Office to rush through the vetting after the PM had announced Mandelson would be the new ambassador
3) The foreign office’s grant to Mandelson of developed vetting status was in line with normal practice, though Robbins believes the prime minister should never have announced Mandelson as ambassador
4) Starmer’s private office put pressure on Robbins to appoint his director of communications Matthew Doyle as an ambassador but should keep the then foreign secretary David Lammy in the dark
5) UK Security Vetting’s concerns about appointing Mandelson were not related to his friendship with the convicted billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein
6) The UK security services granted Mandelson even higher security clearance than even the foreign office had done, namely STRAP status
What emerges from all of this is a picture of the prime minister and his team trying to appoint Mandelson at all costs, and of vetting procedures that are wholly inadequate.
What does not emerge is the notion that Robbins had any culpability for the worst appointment in modern political history, that of Mandelson as US ambassador.
That is damaging enough for Starmer, given that he was forced to sack Mandelson after only nine months when emails leaked to Bloomberg proved that Mandelson’s known friendship with Epstein continued to be unhealthily close after the late billionaire was jailed for paedophile crimes.
But as bad for Starmer is that Robbins was a highly credible witness, which leads to the inescapable conclusion that he has been made a scapegoat by Starmer, that he was doing his job properly and that he should not have been dismissed.
The point is that Robbins had no proper basis for blocking Mandelson, once the PM had announced he would be appointed, especially given that the PM had been informed by the Cabinet Office of the Epstein and either serious risks BEFORE he appointed Mandelson.
The big mistake preceded Olly Robbins even taking up the job of permanent under-secretary at the foreign office. That was to announce Mandelson would be US ambassador, with the King’s official blessing.
Starmer did that, not Robbins.
Starmer gave Robbins the boot apparently for not having the imagination at the time to find a way to save the PM from his own catastrophic decisions - even though Starmer and his then chief of staff Morgan McSweeney just wanted the FCDO to rush the vetting and rubber stamp the appointment.
The implications for Starmer’s grip on office are so obvious they do not bear repeating.
