Pippa Crerar

He'd had an oral briefing about it.

And he decided not to ask.

So it's really quite astonishing then that he goes on, appears in front of MPs and says, well, there was no pass or fail under the process.

It's just not the case.

The process is that the vetting conclusions in this case failed Peter Manderson.

And that it was then up to Ollie Robbins to make a decision under the rules about whether he received clearance.

And on that, of course, he did.

Yeah, in that there seems to be a sort of a point of contention between Downing Street and Ollie Robbins that as far as Oliver Robbins was concerned, the whole vetting process concluded with him making the decision to, he didn't use the word overturn, but effectively to come to a different conclusion from the deep vetting process.

And that that decision meant that Peter Maddison's appointment couldn't then have been signed off by the Foreign Office, which it was, were he not to have received clearance from

So as far as he's concerned, he did inform effectively Downing Street about the conclusion of the process.

Of course, what Downing Street says and what actually our reporting says is that the developed vetting process is different from the whole clearance process.

And he did fail the developed vetting process.

And now Downing Street believes that they should have been informed of that, just that headline decision, rather than just Oliver Robbins' approval or the way we've interpreted it as his overturning it.

And that even though the rules say, and everybody agrees this, that no minister should be involved in the vetting process, there's nothing in there that suggests that they shouldn't be informed of its outcome.

So at the time, March 2025, when Matthew Dull was about to stand down as Director of Communications at Downing Street, Keir Starmer or Downing Street asked or tapped up the Foreign Office to see if there was a posting available for him.

And Ollie Robbins, who, let's not forget, is overseeing this project to decrease the size of the Foreign Office civil service.

said that this made him feel incredibly uncomfortable because he was having to let really experienced people go in the Foreign Office.

And yet here was somebody who didn't really appear to have the qualifications for any ambassadorial role.

Downing Street wanted to find a political appointment.

So ultimately, that didn't go ahead.