Zeffman: Robbins's revelations are a dangerous moment for Starmer

Robbins's revelations are a dangerous moment for Starmer8 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleHenry ZeffmanChief political correspondentPA MediaSir Olly Robbins did not tell anyone in No 10 about the vetting concerns around Lord Mandelson. That is one thing he confirmed pretty quickly in his appearance before the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.At the end of last week, that would have counted as a positive development for No 10. After all, what fuelled so much of the initial fury from opposition parties about the latest Mandelson developments was their assumption - a wrong assumption, as it transpires - that the prime minister or his team must have known about every element of the vetting process.But that is pretty much where the good news for Sir Keir Starmer ends.In his nearly two-and-a-half hour-evidence session, Sir Olly - his voice at one point cracking under emotional strain - offered up an at times devastating account of Downing Street's relentless drive to install Lord Mandelson in Washington DC, an appointment Sir Keir now acknowledges was a grave mistake.In the process, he made an entirely new revelation of a separate attempt to install in a different diplomatic post a different Labour figure who, it later emerged, had his own controversial ties with a different sex offender.Follow live updates and reaction to Robbins evidenceKey evidence from sacked official at heart of Mandelson vetting rowThe core of Sir Olly's argument is that when he became head of the Foreign Office in January 2025 the department was being put under serious pressure to expedite the process for Lord Mandelson's security clearance, but regardless of that pressure giving him the clearance was the right call.Downing Street's position is the exact opposite. They argue that there was not undue pressure on the Foreign Office, but that Sir Olly nevertheless made the wrong call at the end of the vetting process to give Lord Mandelson security clearance.Sir...