Bereft of any big ideas, or indeed policies, the PM is in his happy place: a never-ending parliamentary procedural process

Have his enemies done it? Have the rebels managed to find a thermal exhaust port in the Death Starmer that would enable them finally to destroy it? No, would seem to be the answer after yet another morning of increasingly unwatchable procedural drama for the prime minister.

You know what, it’s such a shame procedural rows aren’t a path to growth. The UK would be a global economy unicorn by now. Still, here we go again for another trip down committee corridor, as the displacement activists of the British political system mine further nitty-gritty on how a sex offender’s best pal was accidentally-on-purpose appointed ambassador to the US. If we keep digging, we’re totally going to strike gold and be able to pay for all the infrastructure upgrades and housing and incentives to capital investment that are the only way out of our decline spiral, to say nothing of the defence boosting urgently required. And I’m barely kidding. There’s probably genuinely more chance of those happening via an orgy of recriminatory committee hearings than via the policies of Keir Starmer and his chancellor. If we stuck the prime minister on the psychoanalyst’s couch, I think they’d find he subconsciously provokes these endlessly consuming process crises. It’s certainly more his happy place than big ideas.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

PM’s former chief of staff looked far from happy when forced into the open to face Commons committee

He walks! He talks! He breathes! For most people, Morgan McSweeney is a quasi-mythical creature. A being that exists almost entirely in the shadows. If at all. Away from the public gaze. The legendary slayer of the Labour left, rumoured to have been shaped in the dark arts by Peter Mandelson, who went on to become the eyes and ears of the prime minister. Possibly even his brain. It was often said the only ideas Keir ever had were ones he had been force-fed by Morgan the Mighty.

But on Tuesday morning, Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff was forced out into the open, summoned to Westminster to give evidence to the foreign affairs select committee about the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador. McSweeney looked far from happy at the exposure. Head down, no eye contact with the public as he sped down the corridor. Maybe he was worried about being out and about in daylight. The darkness has been kind to his skincare regime. He looks far younger than his 49 years.

Badenoch accuses Labour MPs who obey the whip of ‘acting like sheep’ ahead of crunch Mandelson vetting row vote in Commons

Q: Was there pressure on you to approve Mandelson’s vetting?

This is a reference to the claim that Keir Starmer misled MPs last week when he talked about no pressure being placed on the Foreign Office.

One is during my tenure. I was not aware of any pressure on the substance of the Mandelson DV case.

Question two was there pressure? Absolutely. And I’ve described it. And I also have seen what the Foreign Office said to you last night. [See 8.50am.]

I didn’t receive any direct calls from the chief of staff during my time as permanent undersecretary. So there was no call at all. My interactions were always when others were present in a general meeting, there weren’t very many of those either …

I’ve really racked my brains and I cannot recall Morgan McSweeney swearing in a meeting at me, or indeed just in general. So I don’t see any substance in that part of it and I think it’s important I say that this morning, given how many people have come to think that might be true.

Chief property and security officer Ian Collard set to submit written answers to foreign affairs committee questions

A key figure in the row over Peter Mandelson’s appointment as UK ambassador to Washington will not appear before a parliamentary committee of MPs to give evidence.

Emily Thornberry had requested that Ian Collard speak to the foreign affairs committee (FAC) on Tuesday, but confirmed on Saturday that he would submit written answers instead.

Whether he felt under pressure to deliver Mandelson’s clearance, after Robbins said there was an “atmosphere of pressure” and “constant chasing” from Downing Street.

Whether he had seen the cover form for Mandelson’s vetting by UK Security Vetting (UKSV), the agency responsible for checks on candidates for sensitive posts, in which it had ticked two red boxes – meaning they had “high concern” and recommended “clearance denied or withdrawn”.

If he was asked by anyone in the Foreign Office, Downing Street or the Cabinet Office for advice about whether Mandelson required vetting for the post given that he was a member of the House of Lords.

If he advised on how Mandelson should be treated during the period between his appointment being announced and his clearance coming through.

Starmer’s former chief of staff says he does not recognise media’s portrayal of him before evidence hearing with MPs

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Morgan McSweeney has denied claims he bullied civil servants into appointing Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the UK, before an evidence hearing with MPs next week.

Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff resigned in February over his role in the hiring of Mandelson, but the move failed to end the crisis over the peer’s appointment. On Thursday, McSweeney told a security forum in Kyiv that he did not recognise his “character” as it was portrayed in the media.

As the bodies pile up and he continues to blame everyone but himself, respect for the prime minister is draining steadily away

A good leader never asks their people to do something they wouldn’t do themselves. Hold others to the highest standards, by all means, but only if you have equally high expectations of yourself: otherwise you may command obedience in politics but never respect, and over time even that grudging compliance may come laced with contempt. And so it is, less than two years into power, for Keir Starmer.

Nobody in government emerges well from the story of Peter Mandelson’s journey to Washington, and that includes Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office mandarin sacked for not telling Downing Street that its chosen ambassador had set off fire alarms inside the vetting process. Robbins could arguably have saved himself by kicking this intensely political decision upstairs, albeit to a prime minister famous for not really doing politics: he could have just let Starmer choose between the public humiliation of telling the Americans that the man he wanted to send into their highly classified midst was a potential security risk, or the gamble of sending Mandelson anyway but with added guardrails.

Gaby Hinsliiff is a Guardian columnist

Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink?
On Thursday 30 April, join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat Labour faces from the Green party and Reform UK – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader. Book tickets here

Where Olly Robbins relied on recollections, Cabinet Office’s top civil servant was at pains to link her account to paper trail

Seen through the Westminster bubble, the Peter Mandelson vetting affair looks like an age-old conflict pitting ministers against mandarins. Yet the latest top civil servant to testify to parliament over what some are now calling “Mandygate” gave an intriguing account that suggested it has never been as simple as that.

Cat Little, the top civil servant at the Cabinet Office, did not put it in these terms, but what she revealed was an extraordinary dispute between the country’s most senior civil servants.

In evidence to MPs, Cabinet Office top civil servant disputes that her department suggested vetting might not be needed

The Foreign Office refused to hand over a summary of Peter Mandelson’s security vetting to the civil servant tasked with compiling documents detailing his appointment as ambassador to the US, she has told a Commons committee.

Cat Little, the lead official in the Cabinet Office, had to instead get the document directly from UK Security Vetting (UKSV) after Olly Robbins, the subsequently-sacked Foreign Office head, refused to provide it.

The civil servant says he was pressured by No 10 to get Mandelson’s vetting done; the PM says he wasn’t informed. Who emerges most damaged?

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Peter Mandelson’s flaws were mistaken for credentials to represent Britain in the court of a rogue president

You can’t kill something that is already dead. New details about Peter Mandelson’s disastrous appointment as Britain’s ambassador to Washington can trigger more paroxysms of outrage in Westminster. They can sharpen the pitch of opposition calls for the prime minister to resign. They can reinforce the view among Labour MPs that Keir Starmer shouldn’t lead them into a general election. But they can’t produce consensus around a replacement, or invent a way to choose one without self-destructive factional feuding.

Labour MPs’ craving for better leadership has been finely balanced with fear of holding a contest and emerging with someone worse. There is no final straw yet to come because the camel’s back was broken months ago.

Sacked civil servant tells select committee of ‘pressure’ to give clearance and ‘dismissive’ attitude to vetting

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The civil servant sacked by Keir Starmer has given a devastating account of his government, saying Downing Street put huge pressure on the civil service to approve the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Washington ambassador despite the concerns of vetting officials.

Olly Robbins, the former top official at the Foreign Office, said No 10 took a “dismissive” attitude to vetting, and Mandelson was given access to the Foreign Office building and to “higher-classification briefings” before he was granted security clearance.

Olly Robbins exposed a deeper failure: when the prime minister’s decision came first, security vetting was left to catch up after the fact

It was a classic Whitehall performance: understated and explosive. Sir Olly Robbins did not bluster in front of MPs. The sacked Foreign Office chief calmly stuck to the language of process. He admitted clearing Peter Mandelson to be US ambassador despite UK Security Vetting (UKSV) – in his own words – “leaning against” approval. But the context was key: Downing Street had already set a “very, very strong expectation” that the peer would be in Washington fast and had a dismissive attitude to vetting. The decision to back the peer had effectively been made before the system could catch up.

On Monday, MPs skewered Sir Keir Starmer over appointing Lord Mandelson. The issue was not what the prime minister knew, but what he chose to do with the knowledge. By December 2024, he had seen Cabinet Office “due diligence” and was aware of the peer’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein after the financier’s child sex conviction. Sir Keir went ahead anyway. Announcement, royal approval and US “agrément” swiftly turned that judgment into policy – before vetting had even begun. Sir Keir insisted that he should have been told Lord Mandelson was, in his words, denied security clearance for the role of US ambassador. Diane Abbott cut through this defence with a single question: “Why didn’t you ask?”

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

The Foreign Office chief sacked over the Peter Mandelson security vetting scandal has finally given his side of the story in an explosive appearance before MPs. Olly Robbins told the foreign affairs select committee that he faced ‘constant pressure’ to get Mandelson in post as US ambassador as soon as possible, and claimed Downing Street took a ‘dismissive’ attitude to vetting. It came a day after Keir Starmer accused Robbins of ‘obstructing the truth’ about the vetting process in a high-stakes appearance in parliament.

Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s political editor, Pippa Crerar

Sacked civil servant discloses he overturned vetting ruling without knowing full extent of national security concerns

The sacked senior civil servant Oliver Robbins has said he was subject to “constant pressure” when he started working at the Foreign Office to get Peter Mandelson in post as soon as possible.

He said the Cabinet Office urged the Foreign Office to allow Mandelson’s appointment as the UK’s ambassador to the US without the usual vetting process but the Foreign Office pushed back and the vetting eventually went ahead.

Sacked civil servant says No 10 pushed Foreign Office to find diplomatic role for Matthew Doyle without informing foreign secretary

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Downing Street pushed the Foreign Office to find a diplomatic role for Keir Starmer’s communications chief over the head of the then foreign secretary, the former head of the department has revealed.

Testifying to MPs at parliament’s foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday, Olly Robbins said he had several conversations with No 10 about finding a role for Matthew Doyle, who was later suspended as a Labour peer after it emerged he had campaigned for a friend charged with possessing indecent images of children.

Olly Robbins told MPs he had been asked to get the ex-No 10 aide a role and not mention it to then Foreign Secretary David Lammy

• Robbins v Starmer: the key Mandelson points they disagree on

The hearing has started.

Emily Thornberry, the chair, started by saying that Robbins did not tell the whole truth about this process when he gave evidence to it in November.

PM admits he made mistake in choice of ambassador as he makes high-stakes statement to parliament over scandal

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.

Despite his explanation and the need for political stability, the PM is still unpopular – and Olly Robbins has yet to give his side of the story

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.

PM sets out his side of events relating to appointment and security vetting in address to parliament

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Keir Starmer has ordered an investigation into any security concerns relating to Peter Mandelson’s tenure as UK ambassador to the US as he gave his side of events in a politically crucial statement in parliament.

“I know many members across the house will find these facts to be incredible,” Starmer told jeering MPs, after setting out how the Foreign Office opted to overrule the initial decision to refuse Mandelson’s security vetting without informing him and other ministers.

Appointing an amoral narcissist was the PM’s biggest crime, but he was keen to prosecute others in his Commons statement

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. Keir wasn’t the right person to be running the country. But it was just that now, with a war in the Middle East and the local elections early next month, was not the right time to think about replacing him. The party and the country wouldn’t thank them for turning a drama into a crisis.

You may also wonder whether the lack of interest in replacing their leader to be found among Labour backbenchers was mirrored by Starmer’s lack of interest in being prime minister. Because it’s increasingly looking as though he often fails to do the basics. I mean, I’m sure he likes being prime minister. When he remembers he is prime minister. We can’t be certain he doesn’t have to be reminded from time to time.