𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

“Just f***ing approve it!” Sir Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff warned the Foreign Office’s top civil servant, after serious security questions arose over the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson. Diplomatic language it certainly wasn’t – utterly, darkly, damning of Starmer’s Government it certainly was. God we’re sick and tired of it aren’t we? This Government. Of being dictated to by nearly men, by arrogant second raters. Clueless chancers with no thought, no love for this country – only for themselves, their egos and their self-serving agendas.

Listening to what was effectively day two of Mandelsongate, whence Sir Olly Robbins while not out and out lying was defensive, evasive and shall we say careful with the actualitie, it was hard not to conclude a plague on both your houses. What an absolute tornado of lies, mistruths and excuses we, the tired, appalled and angry British public, have been subjected to by everyone involved in the Mandelson affair. Subjected to? Insulted by is perhaps more accurate.

Who knew what, where, and when remains largely irrelevant.

The real question is can there really have been more than three people on the entire British Isles who thought Peter Mandelson should be appointed to anything?

Everybody out here in the real world knows what Mandelson is.

Even Tony Blair, who owes his entire career to the Prince of Darkness, has distanced himself.

Yet our Prime Minister, and his top aide Morgan McSweeney were wilfully oblivious to the facts and the very real concerns of the British public.

To say nothing of the sex-crime victims of Jeffrey Epstein.

Today’s Foreign Affairs Committee meeting is surely the 999th blade in this Government’s slow death by a thousand cuts.

As an aside, it was notable that this “modernising and egalitarian” Labour Government had Dame Emily Thornberry quizzing Sir Olly Robbins about what Sir Keir Starmer knew about Lord Mandelson.

So many titles it had the makings of a Wildean upper class farce: “To lose one advisor, Mr Starmer, may be regarded as a misfortune, but to lose four looks like carelessness.”

Mr Robbins came across as a consummate civil servant, cautious, guarded, protective of the Blob. But his testimony was damning.

He kicked off with a simple enough “the decision was taken by the Cabinet Office that there was no need to vet Mandelson” and confirmed “my office were under constant pressure” from No 10 to clear the Labour stalwart’s appointment as ambassador to the United States.

But the killer line came as he confirmed Emily Thornberry’s statement that Morgan McSweeney had called Sir Olly’s predecessor with the crystal clear exhortation: “Just f***ing approve it!”

Not much obfuscation there.

Oddly, like Diane Abbot yesterday, Thornberry was strangely prescient today.

Sir Olly confirmed that in March 2025, No 10 had, quite scandalously, asked him to look for a top job for Lord Doyle, Sir Keir Starmer’s disgraced former spin doctor, and to keep it a secret from the Foreign Secretary.

“You remember making calls to the head of the Foreign Office saying ‘can you get a job for my mate but don’t tell the Foreign Secretary?’” asked an incredulous Thornberry.

To which a slightly shamefaced Robbins replied: “It’s long time ago. I cannot remember the terms of the phone call.”

The whole thing stunk from every angle.

Starmer pushing Mandelson for the job in the first place shows yet another example of our Prime Minister’s appalling judgement, but it also beggars belief that any civil servant, let alone one with such a pedigree as Robbins, could sit back and watch a man who had failed security vetting be appointed the nation’s most senior diplomat.

What the last two days have shown us more than anything is that the system of Government in this country – Starmer’s beloved process – is malfunctioning badly.

The Government does not serve the people and the Civil Service does not serve the Government.

It is time to clean house on both.