Lucy Hough

The former Foreign Office chief sacked over the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal revealed by The Guardian has finally given his side of the story in an explosive appearance before MPs.

From The Guardian's Today In Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hough.

Well, we're thrilled to have Pippa Crera, our political editor and one of the three reporters behind the extraordinary Guardian exclusive published last week that has, of course, caused so much fallout in the last few days that, Pippa, you have been responsible for much of the coverage of.

It's not usual, is it, that a former civil servant giving an appearance before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee becomes this kind of blockbuster event.

There were three people on my train carriage watching the live stream this morning, which felt quite unusual given it's not a direct route into Westminster.

But this is Ollie Robbins, the former Permanent Secretary to the Foreign Office, who has sort of taken the hit, hasn't he, for the Mandelson fallout.

Why was this so significant?

Yeah.

Let's sort of break down the key issues that were raised.

I think Ollie Robbins made it clear that he felt that he was under political pressure to sort of green light this appointment, despite the reservations, despite the meetings that he'd had and the knowledge he possessed about this vetting.

It's worth saying that Downing Street have denied these claims by Robbins that there was an atmosphere of pressure over the appointment of Mandelson as US ambassador or that there was a dismissive approach to his vetting.

One thing I found striking about what Robbins told the committee this morning was that he felt personally it might be reputationally, diplomatically, politically damaging for the UK to withdraw their choice of ambassador as the second Trump administration was incoming.

And that he said he was free to say now that he was no longer a civil servant.

And obviously, as we know, it was the view inside Downing Street that they felt strongly, however much they might regret that now, that Lord Mandelson was the correct choice for ambassador at that time.

Yeah, and a decision that Keir Starmer has come to deeply regret, as he told MPs in the Commons again yesterday.

I mean, obviously, these vetting processes at this level are highly confidential.

But one thing that was striking in what Robbins told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee was that as far as he was aware, none of the concerns that were raised were to do with Epstein.

I also think it's striking that Robbins told the committee that as far as he was aware, he was told this was a borderline case, that there were some concerns.

But

they could be handled with some mitigations, which doesn't quite track with your reporting and that of your Guardian colleagues.