Starmer fighting for political life after bombshell Mandelson and Doyle revelations from Foreign Office chief

Sacked Foreign Office official Sir Olly Robbins accused Downing Street of a "dismissive approach" to vetting and creating an "atmosphere of pressure" to install Mandelson in Washington as quickly as possible .

He also revealed that Lord Matthew Doyle, who was last year handed a peerage despite links with a convicted sex offender , had been considered for an ambassadorship.

The Prime Minister has blamed the senior civil servant for "deliberately" keeping him in the dark over Lord Mandelson's failure to pass security vetting checks before taking the US ambassador job.

Sir Keir sacked Sir Olly over the scandal last week and on Monday claimed he had challenged the official over why he went against the recommendation of UK Security Vetting (UKSV) not to give Mandelson security clearance.

"I did ask him and I didn't accept his explanation," Sir Keir told the Commons.

"That's why I sacked him."
But appearing before the Foreign Select Committee on Tuesday, Sir Olly said there had been "very frequent communication" with the private office at No 10 regarding Mandelson's appointment as US ambassador.

"There was an atmosphere of constant chasing,” he said.

Asked how frequent this was, he said he could not say but "certainly very frequent from private office to private office."
"Never any interest, as far as I can recall, in whether, but only an interest in when," he said.

He added: "I certainly did arrive to an atmosphere where this was not just 'please get this done quickly', it was 'and get it done'.

"That was a pretty unmistakable feeling.

I don't think I allowed that and certainly the security team did not allow that to cloud their judgement."
Foreign Affairs Committee chair Dame Emily Thornberry said the UK Security Vetting (UKSV) had concluded that Mandelson was a "man of high concern".

Sir Olly said he did not recognise those terms.

He added that UKSV was "leaning" towards recommending that clearance be denied, Sir Olly said, but it accepted it was a "border line" case.

The Foreign Office security team believed the issues of "highest concern" could be mitigated or managed.

The civil servant said they did not relate to Lord Mandelson's links with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

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In a letter to the Foreign Affairs Committee, Sir Olly said that when he took on that role in January 2025, developed vetting was already under way.

"Due diligence (which assesses reputational suitability and checks if a candidate is fit to serve) had been completed by the Cabinet Office," he said.

"Mandelson was being granted access to highly-classified briefing on a case-by-case basis."
He said this "resulted in a dismissive approach to developed vetting (DV) from Number 10 Downing Street (No 10) for the remainder of the process.

“Nonetheless, despite this atmosphere of pressure, the department completed DV to the normal high standard."
Sir Olly also revealed he had been made to feel “ quite uncomfortable” by suggestions from Downing Street that Sir Keir's former director of communications, Lord Matthew Doyle, be given an ambassadorship.

He added that he "kept giving advice that I thought this would be very hard for the office and was hard for me personally to defend".

The proposal came shortly after Sir Olly took over leading the Foreign Office in January last year, at a time when top diplomats were at risk of losing their jobs as part of departmental restructuring discussions.

There were "several discussions initiated by No 10 with me" about potentially "finding a head of mission opportunity for Matthew Doyle", he said.

"I was under strict instruction not to discuss that with the then foreign secretary, which was uncomfortable," he added.

The former senior civil servant said he was unsure "who exactly was behind" the suggestion or "how serious it was".

"I found it very hard to think how I would explain to the office what the credentials of Matthew were to be in an important head of mission role when I was in danger of making very senior, very experienced diplomats leave the office," he said.

Lord Mandelson was also asked about the prospect of a role in Washington for Lord Doyle, Sir Olly suggested.

"I think subsequently, or maybe simultaneously, Mandelson was asked about whether there was a job that could be made available in the US network," he told MPs.

"And so I think the fact that No 10 was interested in potential diplomatic options for Doyle was probably a bit more broadly known than I realised at the time."
Lord Doyle 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.

The peer apologised for backing then councillor Sean Morton before the case against him had concluded, saying he believed the paedophile's assertions of innocence before Morton later admitted the offending.

He had stepped down as the Prime Minister's communications chief last March.

But the row in February heightened pressure on No 10 following the Lord Mandelson scandal, which saw the former US ambassador quit Labour in the wake of new revelations about his association with Jeffrey Epstein.

It led critics to raise fresh questions about the Prime Minister's judgment over his decision to nominate his former communications chief for a peerage last December.