Yvette Cooper has briefed the Guardian’s Pippa Crerar that she only became aware of the Mandelson vetting debacle last night when it hit the headlines. She then spent the evening in discussions with Starmer, and they made the call to bin Olly Robbins as the FCDO’s Permanent Secretary. Yet another name to the list of top government ministers who supposedly had no idea this had happened…
For this version of events to be true, it means Starmer found out about the vetting failure on Tuesday, but thought not to tell the Foreign Secretary about it at any point. She had to find out in the press.
Meanwhile the Independent’s David Maddox points out that he reported on Mandelson’s vetting in September, and approached then-Comms chief Tim Allan for comment. He claimed FCDO had conducted the vetting “in [the] normal way“. Presumably Starmer didn’t read the newspapers that day, and his comms director decided not to flag it. At this point, Labour’s defence is that no one in government speaks to each other, and everyone is incompetent.
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.”