The question of where Peter Mandelson’s story goes next, if anywhere else, was always going to be decided this morning in the Boothroyd Committee room of the House of Commons, where Olly Robbins is speaking to Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Emily Thornberry. Robbins was sacked on Thursday after losing the confidence of Starmer and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper over his decision to give Mandelson enhanced vetting status, despite him failing the vetting procedure and then deciding not to tell any ministers, including the prime minister.
Despite his long career in Whitehall, Robbins’ reputation has come under attack in the past week as he took the rap for this latest twist in the Mandelson affair. But after reports that he is fighting and even considering legal action against the government, fireworks are expected.
Robbins has gone on the attack with a series of revelations about the approach to appointing Mandelson as head of government. He claimed this morning that the Foreign Office was under “constant pressure” from the private office in Number 10 to fly Mandelson to Washington, DC, with “very frequent” calls asking: “Has it been delivered yet?” This, he said, happened in his first month as permanent secretary of the Foreign Office in January 2025, after the Prime Minister’s decision to appoint Mandelson had been announced. In the interests of discretion, he would not say who in Downing Street’s private office had made the calls. Asked about former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and his possible involvement as a Mandelson protege, Robbins said he simply did not know where the pressure on No 10 was coming from.
Of No 10’s stance, he said there had “never been an interest in if (Mandelson would be cleared to go to Washington), but only when” and that there had been a “generally dismissive attitude” to vetting, with a “focus … on getting Mandelson out of Washington quickly”.
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He also revealed that there was a view among senior figures in the Cabinet Office that there was no need to vet Mandelson in the first place because he was already a member of the House of Lords and a Privy Councilor (given his previous service as a Cabinet Minister). The Foreign Office, Robbins said, disputed this.
Robbins’ argument this morning was full of classic civil servant overtones. He said that while he was under the pressure of an operation no. 10 who was determined to give Mandelson the ambassadorship, he nevertheless acted with integrity in giving Mandelson the developed vetting, as it was a “borderline” case in which mitigation could be imposed. Had he not acted as he did, Robbins suggested, it might have been possible for Mandelson to go to Washington without any thorough vetting at all, given the views of the Cabinet Office and private office no. 10. He told of a situation before the clearance developed by Mandelson was given, in which he already had the freedom to roam around Foreign Office buildings, access to IT and even view the highest classified notices.
Robbins has largely stuck to the facts in this submission, but lost his temper when asked why the prime minister would have ignored former cabinet secretary Simon Case’s advice to vet political appointments before announcing them. “Maybe he thought, this is a very popular character; I’m making a risk judgment,” Robbins speculated. Once again, this saga comes back to the question of the Prime Minister’s judgment and why they were so likely to take Mandelson to the embassy in Washington.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; get it every morning by subscribing to Substack here
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