Ollie Robbins

Certainly the handover briefing I was getting as I arrived at post was what I felt was a generally dismissive attitude to his vetting clearance.

The focus was on getting Mandelson out to Washington quickly.

The Prime Minister's nominee had been put out there to the public, announced for

blessed by the king, agreed by the US government, against that backdrop, the Foreign Office saying, OK, but sorry, we can't grant him clearance, would have been a very, very difficult problem.

I walked into a situation in which there was already a very, very strong expectation, and you will have seen the papers released already under the Humble Address, that coming from Number 10, that he needed to be in post and in America as quickly as humanly possible.

The very first formal communication of this to my predecessor from Number 10 private office being that they wanted all this done at pace and Mandelson in post before inauguration.

There was an atmosphere of constant chasing.

Daily phone calls?

I couldn't say for certain daily, but certainly very frequent, from private office to private office.

Has this been delivered yet?

Never any interest, as far as I recall, in weather, but only an interest in when.

So maybe this is the first time remembering back to the Chair's introduction where I can abandon the civil servant's response of saying that's a hypothetical question.

I think it would have been very difficult indeed, Mr Cardon.

I mean, again, if I can walk you back to the situation I came into the post in, we have been through all of these steps very publicly in which the Prime Minister's nominee

had been put out there to the public, announced, blessed by the King, agreed by the US government.

We were in receipt of formal letters from Number 10 telling us to get on with it quickly.

We had engineered agreement to arrive just before the inauguration as required by that original letter that's been published as part of the Humble Address response.

So I'm not trying to hide from your question, but I suppose all I can do is agree with the premise that against that backdrop,

The Foreign Office saying, OK, but sorry, we can't grant him clearance would have been a very, very difficult problem.

There were several discussions initiated by Number 10 with me about potentially finding a head of mission opportunity for Matthew Doyle, who was then the Prime Minister's Director of Communications.