An excruciating morning round for Pat McFadden. First on Times Radio, where he was asked three times if it was “fair” for Starmer to sack Olly Robbins. Eventually, the blood from a stone answer came:
“Look, of course as a Cabinet member, I support the Prime Minister’s decisions. He took the decision he couldn’t continue with Olly Robbins in post because he viewed the material that had been withheld from him, not shared with him, as really important in making his decision…”
Then on Sky News, it turned out McFadden hadn’t even asked Number 10 if it was true that Starmer asked for an ambassadorship for Matthew Doyle. It took almost three minutes for an answer to emerge:
“No, because I don’t think the Prime Minister would be in the position of picking up a phone on a personnel matter like that…”
You know it’s bad when even Pat McFadden is dropping word salads…
Olly Robbins has just revealed that Downing Street tried to find an ambassadorial job for Starmer’s then-Comms chief Matthew Doyle. And instructed Robbins not to tell David Lammy, who happened to be the Foreign Secretary…
“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 Number 10 Head of Communications, and I was under strict instruction not to discuss that with the then-Foreign Secretary which was uncomfortable. But the context here […] I was still in my early months in the job, but I’d already concluded […] that the Foreign Office needed quite serious reform… I found it very hard to think how I would explain to the office what the credentials were of Matthew Doyle to be in an important head of mission role…”
Robbins stressed repeatedly the point that he was “uncomfortable” finding a job for Doyle given his lack of credentials. Of course it would later emerge that Doyle campaigned for convicted sex offender Sean Morton, which Number 10 seemed sanguine about…
Miliband on Sky News this morning:
“As you know, I steered well clear of Mandelson when I became Labour leader in 2010… I had a conversation with David Lammy about it before the appointment, and I said I was worried about it… I think [Lammy] was worried about it too.”
A perfect time to remind everyone he thinks he has better judgement than the (current) Prime Minister. Useful if there’s a vacancy…
Number 10 has refused to say it has confidence in the FCDO as an institution in light of the Mandelson saga. It insists not a single minister, including Starmer, Lammy, or Cooper, knew he had failed vetting. Even though David Maddox spoke to then-Comms chief Tim Allan about the story back in September…
Asked directly at the Lobby briefing of press hacks just now if the PM still had confidence in the Foreign Office, the spokesman said:
“[We] couldn’t be stronger in fact that it is both staggering and unbelievable that he was not told… it is clearly a staggering failure… and that is why he has asked for an urgent investigation.”
Asked why Mandelson was pictured wearing a green-striped DV pass despite failing, the spokesman said it was “one for the Foreign Office“. Downing Street is trying to throw the entire department under the bus to save Starmer’s skin…
We know Mandelson was given developed vetting (even though it now emerges he had failed) on 6th January 2025. He was pictured in the street with a DV level pass with that issue date. What has transpired since then?
On 11 September 2025 The Independent’s Political Editor asked Downing Street to comment on claims Mandelson had failed DV. The answer: “vetting done by FCDO in the normal way”…
On 4th February 2026 Starmer appeared at PMQs. Asked whether Mandelson’s “security vetting” contained Esptein allegations, he answered “yes it did“…
The next day, on 5th February 2026, Starmer gave a speech in Hastings where he said: “there was then… security vetting… which gave him clearance for the role“.
Now No10 maintains Starmer only found out Mandelson had failed DV this Tuesday (14th April). No10 claims Starmer ordered an investigation into the issue that day.
But Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper’s team maintains she wasn’t told until The Guardian newspaper ran the story yesterday (16th April).
The long and the short of this timeline is that it simply doesn’t add up. Starmer repeatedly commented in public and in the Commons about Mandelson’s DV. His then Director of Comms failed to deny that Mandelson had in fact failed his DV. The question of Mandelson’s vetting was clearly a live issue in government months prior to this week…
It is simply implausible that Starmer did not know or at least suspect Mandelson’s DV was a problem. Thinnest possible ice…
Yet another scandal Can’t Recall Keir knew the square root of nothing about…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”