Jonathan Freedland

There's something of...

The Henry II, who will rid me of this turbulent priest story here, which people may remember that reference to Thomas a Beckett where the old king said, who will rid me of this turbulent priest?

And before he knew it, the turbulent priest was killed.

Sometimes the head makes clear what he wants done and the officials over-execute, as it were, the wishes of the boss.

Did Ollie Robbins think, I know Starmer wants Mandelson.

My job is to give him Mandelson.

And if there are obstacles in the way, it's better that he doesn't even know it.

I'll make sure he gets what he wants.

And I will give him deniability because he'll never know.

He won't have to make the decision.

to overrule the advice of the security vetting agency, he might have thought he was being a very good, loyal civil servant, delivering to the PM what the PM wants.

People who know these people say that is really what they live for.

These top officials, their job, as they say, is give the PM what the PM wants.

And so he may have been overzealous in that, because in the end, he's landed the PM in tremendously hot water.

Yes.

I mean, I half wonder if those Scottish, Welsh and local elections were not imminent, whether they would actually be gunning for Starmer more.

In a funny way, the timing of this, oddly, perversely, is almost helpful for Starmer.

Because let's say this broke 10 days after terrible results in Scotland and Wales and English councils.

You could imagine it being used as the stick with which to beat Starmer or the lever with which to prize him out of Downing Street.

Instead, this is not the right time because they do not want to get rid of a leader just weeks before huge parts of the country of the UK go to vote.