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Chapter 1: What led to Keir Starmer's decision to sack Olly Robbins?
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Keir Starmer came to office saying that he wanted to clean up politics. They weren't going to have this constant round of scandal and cover-up and misbehaviour. And yet, where are we now?
Mates and wives of mates and husbands of mates. And this person said it was like WAGs City Central.
I think processes are going to change a bit as a result of this whole fiasco.
Another friend of another paedophile being pushed into another top-notch ambassadorial role.
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Chapter 2: How did Olly Robbins describe the pressure during the vetting process?
I think it is almost impossible to see how Starmer comes back from that.
Morgan McSweeney, the Chief of Staff, rang Sir Philip and said, in terms stronger than those that I can use before the watershed... I think you should. Well, I'll just say that it was just to prove it, with terms stronger than that. Does that accord with your impression?
It does f***ing approve it. Was the pressure to approve Peter Mandelson... in the job, at the heart of what happened in that critical vetting process we now know so much about.
Chapter 3: What were the implications of Peter Mandelson's appointment?
The account from Sir Ollie Robbins of what happened and why is so starkly different from what Keir Starmer had to tell the Commons that you're left wondering now whether it's Keir Starmer who can survive. Welcome to the News Agents. The news agents. It's John. It's Meatless.
And it's hard to overstate the drama of what we witnessed today in that committee room with a bunch of MPs and a senior civil servant. And don't let the fact that he spoke in a quiet voice gull you to believe that this was quiet and inconsequential. It was massive what he was saying today because he set out a case that essentially torpedoed
What Keir Starmer had said yesterday to the Commons undermined a lot of the Starmer arguments and left an awful lot of people scratching their heads and saying, why was this man made a sacrificial lamb for a process that Downing Street itself was the author of, the master of, the creator of, and should be the owner of, and yet it is Sir Ollie Robbins who has walked the plank
And not Keir Starmer.
Yeah. And what Robbins went on to tell us in his two hour appearance before the committee today was how much pressure there had been to OK the decision that would hurry Peter Mandelson into the Washington job. Let's just listen to him in his own words.
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.
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Chapter 4: What was the reaction to Robbins' testimony about Downing Street's involvement?
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.
as quickly as humanly possible. So hang on a second. There is this long vetting process. There is this cabinet office vetting process. There is this propriety and ethics process where everyone is meant to do their job thoroughly and report back. And Robin says, yes, we did do it thoroughly.
Chapter 5: How did the committee chair Emily Thornberry respond to Robbins' claims?
We did do it properly. There was no question that the vetting was done properly. But the circumstances, the context of the time was just get this guy in. He says they were actually quite dismissive about the whole vetting process. He says that the Cabinet Office at one point said, oh, do we really need to do this again? And he also reminds us that, yes, Simon Case had told Keir Starmer directly.
Don't go ahead with the announcement before you've done the vetting. Ollie Robbins said he was right.
Chapter 6: What concerns were raised about political appointments in the Foreign Office?
I would have said the same.
And this is what torpedoes the Starmer argument yesterday when Starmer says, if I'd have known. I would never have appointed Peter Mandelson. If I'd known there'd been a problem over the vetting, he would have never got the job. He'd already been given the job. Sir Keir Starmer already had the approval of the king.
You had written to the US embassy to say that Peter Mandelson was coming out as our ambassador. You had flown in the face of the advice that... I mean, they get sign-off from Donald Trump himself, right? It's the agrimon, they call it, between the two countries. Exactly. And then you've had the Simon case...
Chapter 7: How does this controversy affect Keir Starmer's leadership?
warning saying you must do vetting before you announce it ignored you've had jonathan powell who was tony blair's kind of chief of staff who knew mandelson well saying why is this appointment being made with such undue haste and you've got starmer Like a steam train saying this has to happen.
So I think the Starmer argument from yesterday that I'd have never appointed him just doesn't hold water.
And you have to listen to this because it is Ollie Robbins describing how the pressure was, in his words, almost daily.
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.
Chapter 8: What are the broader implications for the Labour Party following this scandal?
Has this been delivered yet? Never any interest, as far as I recall, in weather, but only an interest in when.
I mean, that is damning. No interest in whether, only in when. In other words, you are there to deliver what we've asked for. Just hurry up, which takes us back to the expletive at the very beginning. So Ollie Robbins is in this position. where the announcement's been made, the agreement's been made, the job is on offer.
Peter Mandelson has already got, we understand, the Downing Street lanyard clearance before the vetting's been signed off. And what happens then is he goes to the vetting service, which is done through the Cabinet Office, and he asks them what they've found. He doesn't see any of the forms that we're now familiar with. He doesn't see the red box of danger being ticked. That's what we heard today.
But he does understand that there is. A balance of probabilities. They are leaning towards saying that this could be risky. But it is for Ollie Robbins to make that decision himself. It's not for the vetting process. So he didn't overturn anything. And it's not for ministers. It is not for the prime minister. It all rests with the decision he made. And he says, yes, I did take that decision.
Given where we were in the process, given what I thought we already knew about Mandelson, I made the process to sign it off and that lay with me alone.
I find the nerd in me kind of fascinated by learning about how government works. And we've learned a lot about the vetting process and what it means to have developed vetting. We're kind of all going to come away experts at the end of this process. But I'm also sort of fascinated by the bigger political picture of what has unfolded
in this whole thing, where Ollie Robbins has behaved like successive civil servants have, that apparently it is to the discretion of
the you know the permanent secretary at the foreign office to decide whether there is a risk and how you manage that risk and what you do to mitigate it and and he has done that but also the crucial point and i hadn't really thought about this before is that if there is a red flag over somebody or a mitigation that needs to be do you pass that on around and make that part of general conversation when that could have such a bearing on someone's career for years to come
The fact of the matter is that a lot of this stuff isn't minuted. And that's a separate issue, which I think... You mean written down? Written down. And I think that there was frustration from Emily Thornberry, the committee chair, that not more had been written down. But the idea is that you take a decision. I'm going to mitigate this. And it's not for everyone to know.
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