Who would have predicted that the huge bucket of shit that sat on the edge of Keir Starmer’s desk in December 2024 could have tipped over and ruined the carpet? After all, the bucket had only been turned twice before in full public view. The deeply unpleasant nature of its content could only have been known by people who had access to a newspaper, a library, the internet or the thoughts of almost any other British adult. And so it came as a real shock when a distant explosion – later identified as being caused by the opening of some files elsewhere – caused a tremor that sent the bucket off the table, and now it’s on everyone’s shoes.
For any normal group of people, spraying with noxious effluent might be considered a nadir, but this is British politics we’re talking about. The tipping of the bucket was only the beginning of an even less dignified debate about who was to blame.
Yesterday, Keir Starmer told parliament that it was certainly not his fault that the bucket – which, in case it’s not clear, is a clever metaphor for Peter Mandelson’s career – had spread in the public conversation. In the Commons yesterday, Starmer told MPs that he was absolutely furious that the civil service had not communicated to him that in their official assessment of his decision to put the shit bucket right on the edge of his desk – the edge that people always bump into because it juts out into a busy corridor, you know, the edge with the box showed that the red box had put on a wobbly leg. carpet-ruiner.
This morning, the last person dismissed for this decision, the former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Olly Robbins, appeared before the deputies of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. It was Robbins’ job to discuss concerns raised by the United Kingdom Security Council (UKSV) during the “conducted vetting” of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the United States. Above all it was his job to explain why, upon learning of these concerns, he didn’t run into Keir Starmer’s office, shouting: “Prime Minister! There is a suggestion that the professional lobbyist and widely reported associate of the world’s most notorious pedophile – that’s right, Prime Minister, the man he has referred to as his political ‘prince’ for decades. The record may not be entirely clean!”
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But as Robbins explained, he didn’t even see the special letter with a cross in the red box. He also explained that it is not the UKSV’s job to deny permission – that is the job of the Foreign Ministry. Mandelson, it has been reported, did not “fail security vetting” as carried out by the UKSV, which told Robbins it was “leaning towards recommending against, but admitted it was a borderline case”.
Most people would think twice about appointing someone to fly helicopters or perform surgeries or provide childcare if an official assessment concluded they were a “borderline case” for approval, but the process for appointing Britain’s most important diplomatic post was different. Robbins told MPs there was huge pressure to approve the appointment from the Cabinet Office, which he said had a “dismissive attitude to (Mandelson’s) vetting clearance” amid “an atmosphere of pressure”. There was, he said, “constant follow-up” from officials asking: “has it been delivered yet?” The source of pressure, he said, was private office no. 10.
Emily Thornberry checked that Robbins’ phone, on which these calls were received, had been turned over and would be available for investigation. “Of course you will,” he said with a smile, pleased to confirm this his the phone, unlike that of Morgan McSweeney – who reportedly encouraged officials to sign Mandelson’s permit by asking: “just approve it” and has already resigned over the Mandelson scandal – was not stolen.
A major reason for the push to appoint this appears to have been that the sleazy Pete, as Mandelson is apparently known in Washington, was seen as a Trump whisperer. of aPPROVAL agreement between Great Britain and the United States on the posting of a new ambassador was reached on the last day of the Biden administration, which considered the United Kingdom a sovereign nation and an ally. The announcement had already been made. If the UK had changed its mind after that point, Donald Trump could have decided it was now his decision. In 2016, Trump declared that Nigel Farage should be the UK’s ambassador to the US; perhaps this time he would have chosen Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, or Russell Brand.
However, Robbins revealed that it was not just Mandelson whose appointment was pursued by Number 10. Robbins said he was also asked by Number 10 to find a diplomatic post (as “chief of mission”) for Matthew Doyle, Starmer’s former communications director. He said he was given “strict instructions not to discuss” the appointment with the Foreign Secretary. Fortunately, after having “a hard time finding anything that I thought might be appropriate,” Robbins wasn’t sure: Doyle was given a life peer. A few weeks later Doyle was suspended from the Labor Party after it was revealed that he had campaigned for a known sex offender to be elected to local government. With friends like these, Starmer hardly needs enemies, though he obviously has plenty too.
The real question for Robbins, as committee chair Emily Thornberry said, was: “where is the note?” By this she meant that most people in Westminster would understand that any civil servant, having been pressured by someone in Number 10 – some mysterious, nameless Sweeney McMorgan in a meeting room somewhere – would write a note saying: “Thanks for a great meeting, I’m now going to hand over a plum job to a very shady person we’ve suspected of me”.
But Robbins explained that would have gone against the process he holds in high esteem. The verification process depends on every part of it being completely confidential, because if it wasn’t, the people being verified wouldn’t admit all their darkest secrets. He could not send a note, could not puff a page or raise an eyebrow, about Mandelson’s appointment without departing from the channels of process. When Thornberry quoted him the instruction about his duty not to be influenced by undue pressure from others, he nodded and told her that he had two texts he kept in his memory: the Book of Common Prayer and the Civil Service Code.
That, perhaps, is what Starmer will have found heartbreaking about Robbins’ appearance. Not the class and majesty he showed after he was fired – he claimed that in relation to the appointment “the Prime Minister did the right thing” – but his dedication to following the process properly. Starmer – “director general of the United Kingdom, British permanent secretary of state– once believed that simply following all the correct procedures would be enough, but the people around him had other ideas, and the dream of a competently managed country was shattered once again.
(Further reading: Olly Robbins reveals “constant pressure” from Number 10 on Peter Mandelson)
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