Will Olly Robbins’ testimony jeopardise Keir Starmer’s defence?

On Monday, Keir Starmer testified in front of the Commons about what he knew about the vetting process behind Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to Washington.On Tuesday, Olly Robbins – whom Starmer sacked as head of the Foreign Office last week – will give his side of the story under questioning by MPs on the foreign affairs select committee.Robbins is said by friends to be upset by the claims ministers are making. But what are the questions he will be asked, and what might they mean for the prime minister’s future?Robbins is very unlikely to give details of the vetting process or what exactly officials discovered, given this is supposed to be strictly confidential. But MPs are likely to press him on whether anything new was found during the vetting process or whether it only flagged previously known concerns

Peter Mandelson: a timeline of his appointment as UK ambassador to US

In a pivotal Commons statement to MPs on Monday, Keir Starmer laid out the most detailed timeline of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as the UK ambassador to the US, the vetting process that ended with the Foreign Office overruling the UK Security Vetting (UKSV) and what he said were chances to tell him that civil servants had failed to take.Cabinet Office conducts a due diligence exercise on how suitable Mandelson was for the role. Starmer told the Commons his No 10 staff put questions to Mandelson on the department’s behalf.Mandelson responded to questions from the Cabinet Office’s due diligence exercise, posed to him by Downing Street staff, Starmer told MPs in the Commons.“I made the decision to appoint him,” Starmer told MPs, after receiving final advice on the due diligence process on 11 December 2024

Starmer accuses Robbins of obstructing truth about Mandelson vetting

Keir Starmer has accused Olly Robbins of deliberately and repeatedly obstructing the truth about the Mandelson vetting scandal before a high-jeopardy appearance of the sacked top official before MPs on Tuesday.Six days after the prime minister said he had learned that his pick for Washington ambassador had failed security vetting, Starmer admitted his decision to appoint him had been a fundamental mistake.But in a sombre address to parliament, he insisted the Foreign Office was to blame for a “staggering” and “incredible” decision not to brief him, or anybody else in Downing Street, about the vetting advice.Starmer told MPs that the vetting information had now been handed to the trusted Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), which is expected to assess it before returning it to the government within days for public release.The Guardian understands this includes a short summary document including details of Mandelson’s personal life, and financial and business dealings – which the prime minister is also believed to have now seen – as well as the recommendation that Mandelson had failed vetting

Mobile phones to be banned in schools in England under new plans

A ban on mobile phones in schools in England is to be introduced by the government to ensure that “critical safeguarding legislation” is passed.The government will table an amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill in the House of Lords after the bill was held up by peers on opposition benches.It will make existing guidance on mobile phone bans in schools statutory, a move that ministers have resisted until now.The government had consistently argued that the vast majority of schools had already banned mobile phones, and that there was no need to add a legal requirement. They finally capitulated, however, describing it as “a pragmatic measure” to get the bill through

How safe is Starmer’s premiership after his Mandelson vetting statement to MPs?

Labour MPs frustrated with the lack of a clear mission from Keir Starmer’s No 10 have often urged the prime minister to be more forceful in his arguments, to prosecute his values, to find an enemy to define himself against.The prime minister has found one: Olly Robbins. Starmer prosecuted his case against the former Foreign Office chief on Monday with the vigour of his former life at the bar.He came armed with timelines and letters and the promise of a new inquiry. He insisted that, had he known Peter Mandelson had failed the vetting, his original sin of appointing him as US ambassador would not have been committed

Starmer says it ‘beggars belief’ he wasn’t told about Mandelson vetting failure as he faces down the Commons – UK politics as it happened

It wasn’t much of a win, but as Keir Starmer heads back to Downing Street he will probably count that as a sort of success. Labour MPs did not turn on him; there was no one on his side calling for his resignation, and those who did speak out were mostly from the Corbynite left (whose views are discounted by No 10 anyway), and who were more keen to aim their fire at Morgan McSweeney and Peter Mandelson.If Kemi Badenoch thought there was more mileage in this, she could have tabled a no confidence motion on this which would have to be debated tomorrow, but she didn’t. She can be brutal in the Commons, but her speech today did not cause the PM any difficulties.Last week she was saying he was clearly lying

What Starmer said, and didn’t say, in the Commons about the Mandelson saga

Keir Starmer has laid out a detailed timeline of events leading up to Peter Mandelson being refused security vetting and how the message was not passed to No 10. Here’s what his statement did tell us – and what it was more vague on.double quotation markI will now set out a full timeline of the events in the Peter Mandelson process.”In a statement that leaned heavily on Starmer’s time as a lawyer, and was framed almost as a prosecution opening case against the Foreign Office and its now-ousted head civil servant, Olly Robbins, the PM set out events from 18 December 2024, when the decision to appoint Mandelson was confirmed, to last Tuesday, when he finally learned that security vetting had been initially refused.This included moments when, Starmer argued, he or others should have been told about Mandelson initially being refused security vetting: the initial refusal; when the foreign affairs select committee was assured that normal procedures were followed; and when Starmer began a wider review into vetting this year

Starmer the Incurious asks no questions and sees no Mandy-shaped red flags

Things could be worse. The prime minister can still catch a break. Some had called Monday’s Commons statement Keir Starmer’s judgment day. But that was a category error. Many Labour MPs had long since made up their minds

Is Richard Tice’s picture AI-manipulated? Here are five giveaways

After Richard Tice posted a picture of an apparent Reform campaign event on Sunday, experts and social media detectives took a closer look and concluded from a variety of telltale signs that the image had either been edited or generated by artificial intelligence. Here are some of the elements that critics called into question.One woman has six fingers on one hand and extra long ones on the other. The man in the beige jacket has three extremely long fingers which look like sausages. AI often gets fingers wrong