‘Sacked Olly Robbins’ revelations add to Keir Starmer’s woes at dangerous moment’

Sir Olly Robbins chief used his moment at the Foreign Affairs Committee to show he would not go quietly after Keir Starmer laid the blame for Mandelson’s vetting fiasco at his door

“Grimacing”.

That was the verdict from one Labour MP after Sir Olly Robbins delivering a quietly devastating testimony about the relentless pressure from No10 to send Peter Mandelson to Washington.

The sacked Foreign Office chief used his moment at the Foreign Affairs Committee to show he would not go quietly after Keir Starmer laid the blame for the vetting fiasco squarely at his door.

Over two-and-a-half hours, the unflashy mandarin calmly lobbed a bunch of grenades at No10. He claimed there was a “dismissive” approach to the peer’s vetting process and said his department was under relentless pressure from above to fast-track Lord Mandelson’s appointment in time for Donald Trump’s inauguration.

And he came armed with the explosive revelation that Downing Street sought to install the PM’s then-spin chief Matthew Doyle in a top diplomatic post while keeping the Foreign Secretary in the dark.

Doyle was made a peer instead but later lost the Labour whip over his links to a convicted sex offender. Another scandal No10 would like to see recede from the public’s mind.

The one bright spot was Sir Olly confirmed that he did not tell the Prime Minister or Downing Street about concerns flagged about the Labour grandee’s security clearance.

This knocks down the attacks from Kemi Badenoch and other opposition leaders last week, who jumped to call for him to quit. But that will offer little comfort to the Prime Minister, who once again finds himself in the eye of a Mandelson storm.

The fallout from this fateful mistake keeps on rearing its head, knocking Mr Starmer off course when he can’t afford to be distracted.

Crucial local elections are just around the corner – and what already looks set to be a bad night for Labour won’t be helped by relentless headlines about the PM’s judgement.

Labour is fighting for its life in Wales and Scotland, while MPs in parts of England fear their councillors will be decimated by Reform.

The last thing the party needs it more questions about the PM’s judgement after he appointed Lord Mandelson as US ambassador despite his ties to the notorious paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

In opposition, Mr Starmer was relentless in his scrutiny of Boris Johnson, using his background as a barrister to forensically scythe through his bluster.

A damaging side effect of this scandal is it makes the PM look strangely uninterested in the detail of who he was appointing to the UK’s top diplomatic post.

It is clear that Mr Starmer was kept in the dark by the Foreign Office but that doesn’t stop this whole mess looking odd to voters.

The timing is terrible for the PM, who appeared to have won a bit of breathing space after winning plaudits for his approach to the Iran crisis. This row threatens those fragile political gains, and leave the PM weakened ahead of the perilous May elections.

Mr Starmer still has much to fight for – and he is helped by the fact that his MPs don’t appear to have the stomach to topple him. They looked into the abyss when he was nearly ousted in February and didn’t like what they saw.

Since then, most MPs I talk to seem glum and resigned, rather than actively plotting to oust their leader. And for all the fevered speculation about a leadership challenge, none of the most-touted candidates – Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting, Andy Burnham – are in a position to launch a coup even if they wanted to.

Ms Rayner is still awaiting the results of a probe into her tax affairs, while Mr Streeting is weighed down by his own ties with Lord Mandelson. Mr Burnham isn’t even an MP.

Labour MPs could go into meltdown after a local elections bloodbath. So Mr Starmer needs to move urgently to get on the front foot.

An ambitious King’s Speech full of proper Labour ideas is a must to soothe his backbenchers and to show the public this Government has direction and vision.

Bearing down on the cost of living rightly remains the PM’s top priority. He must show his Government is shielding people from the impact of the Iran war.

He’ll likely face calls to reshuffle his Cabinet, or perform yet another reset of his No10 operation. The most important thing will be to show he’s listening – and that he’s got the stomach for the fight.