There are moments in public life when someone carefully lifts the lid to reveal what really happens in the corridors of power and show us that the gruesome details are even worse than we thought.
That was the case on Tuesday when the now-sacked chief mandarin of the Foreign Office, Sir Olly Robbins, gave evidence to to the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee over the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal – and revealed a Downing Street operation defined by cronyism and cynicism to its very core.
While some of what Sir Olly said was caveated, the key takeaways from his testimony damn Sir Keir Starmer and the apparent toxic culture within the inner sanctum of his government.
During a two-hour session, we learnt that there was an alleged attempt by the Cabinet Office to exclude Peter Mandelson from security vetting for the crucial role of ambassador to the US. We also learnt there were regular calls and “constant chasing” from the No 10 private office (that’s the prime minister’s private office) to push the appointment of Mandelson – a known friend of a disgraced paedophile and also a proven security risk.
Sir Olly also claimed there was a “strong expectation” that Mandelson needed to be in post – and in America – “as quickly as humanly possibly”. He said the political consequences of him overruling the decision – because the appointment had already been announced publicly – would have been catastrophic.
The former Foreign Office head also gave a damning assessment of Sir Keir’s judgement, pointing out that the prime minister was warned of the risks of Mandelson’s appointment through Cabinet Office checks and pushed it through anyway.
But the cherry on the cake was an attempt by No 10 to pressure the Foreign Office into finding an ambassador’s role for Starmer’s former director of communications, Lord Matthew Doyle, at a time when top diplomats were at risk of losing their jobs under departmental restructuring.
Sir Olly revealed that not only was a man since suspended from the Labour Party because of his support for a convicted paedophile – just like Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein – pushed for an ambassadorial role, but that he was under “strict instructions” not to tell David Lammy, the then foreign secretary, about the demand.
“I felt very uncomfortable about that,” Sir Olly told the committee, adding that he “kept giving advice that I thought this would be very hard for the office and was hard for me personally to defend”.
Lord Doyle was later made a peer. But he had the Labour whip withdrawn earlier this year after it emerged he had campaigned on behalf of a friend who had been charged with possessing indecent images of children.
What is worrying is that – while these revelations are all shocking in themselves and certainly raise further questions about the prime minister’s own probity, knowledge and general account of events – they may only be scratching the surface of the murky depths of cronyism.
We now understand, in a way, why Downing Street did not initiate emergency investigations when The Independent revealed that Mandelson had failed security vetting in September. In a way, they knew the answer, because at the time they just wanted him appointed, according to Sir Olly’s testimony. Some in the Cabinet Office even questioned the need to vet him at all, he told MPs.
But it is the attempt to give Doyle a sensitive senior diplomatic job that may end up being the killer blow for Starmer. To appoint one friend of a paedophile as an ambassador is unfortunate, but two is unforgivable.
Then, to deliberately keep the discussions away from the foreign secretary – who would eventually have had to make such an appointment – is astounding and reveals the toxic culture in the Starmer operation, possibly more so when Morgan McSweeney was at the helm.
It all paints a picture of a small, self-serving elite – the very criticism levelled at Starmer’s government by critics on the Labour back benches.
It seems that the prime minister knew about the risks, but wanted his Labour friends to get their plum jobs anyway.
No wonder ambitious young special advisers in the Labour government have previously made it clear to The Independent that they would consider it a bad career move to be brought into Downing Street and would rather stay in one of the outlying departments.
They do not want to be part of a setup that is toxic in nature and limping to an inevitable demise, probably in May when the election results should finish Sir Keir’s battered premiership.
What Sir Olly has revealed about Sir Keir’s inner operation is a world away from the high moral tone that the prime minister himself claimed he wanted to bring in as the culture of his government.
The questions about Starmer’s integrity and judgement have been answered in the polite and calm responses of a former senior mandarin.
But the answers are damning.
