Rights activists call UK ambassador ‘morally compromised’ for accepting honour from Bahraini king in apparent breach of Foreign Office rules

The British ambassador to Bahrain has been accused of breaching government rules over accepting an award by the Gulf state’s king, a move critics suggest signals diplomats and civil servants are “up for grabs”.

This week, the ambassador, Alastair Long, received the Order of Bahrain from King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, in recognition of his diplomatic tenure, which human rights activists and politicians say is in “direct breach” of the Foreign Office’s rules on accepting foreign awards.

National Audit Office says agency proposes closing operations in 11 countries as part of turnaround plan

The British Council faces cutting its workforce further and closing operations in 11 countries as it struggles to repay a crippling £197m Covid-era government loan that threatens its survival, the public spending watchdog has said.

The UK’s soft-power agency remains loss-making six years on from the pandemic and is not expected to make a profit until 2029-30, a report from the National Audit Office says.

File detailing security mitigations is among those withheld at the request of the Metropolitan police

Ministers have faced renewed cross-party pressure in parliament over documents missing from a 1,500-page release of papers about Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to Washington.

Despite the volume of information published on Monday, crucial documents were withheld at the request of the Metropolitan police on the grounds that they could “potentially prejudice” an investigation. They include a document summarising the vetting process, which concluded with officials recommending Mandelson not be given security clearance.

Craig and Lindsay Foreman given 10-year sentences in February for alleged espionage, which they deny

A British couple jailed on spying charges in Iran have lost an appeal against their convictions, their family has said.

Craig and Lindsay Foreman, both aged 53, were handed 10-year prison sentences in February after being convicted of espionage, which they deny.

Vetting of former UK ambassador to Washington warned of ties to senior figures in China, Russia and Israel

A former head of MI6 has said it would have been “totally impossible” for the Foreign Office to put in place mitigations to manage Peter Mandelson’s associations with senior figures in China, Russia and Israel when he was the UK’s ambassador to the US.

On Wednesday, the Guardian revealed some of the concerns that contributed to security officials recommending that Mandelson be denied developed vetting clearance in early 2025.

Exclusive: Vetting officials also flagged £1m loan when recommending he should be denied security clearance

• Key questions: did ‘mitigations’ cover links to China and Russia?

Peter Mandelson’s associations with senior figures in China, Russia and Israel were among the concerns raised by the UK’s vetting agency when it concluded he should be denied clearance, multiple sources have told the Guardian.

Mandelson’s links to China’s minister of finance, Lan Fo’an, the sanctions-hit Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and a former Israeli military intelligence general, Tamir Hayman, were all flagged by the agency as areas of concern shortly before he took up his post as the UK’s ambassador to the US, the sources said.

Backlash grows among European staff against radical cuts to pay off Covid-era debt, with some accusing council of ‘colonial attitude’

The historic Palacete building at 31 Paseo del General Martínez Campos in Madrid’s upmarket Chamberí district has been home to the British Council in Spain for about 70 years.

About 5,000 students each year pass through its 35 classrooms, learning English, attending exams, and forging cultural ties with the UK. Over the years that is hundreds of thousands of Madrileños (people from Madrid), while it also serves as a centre for the expat community.

Soft power institution faces funding crisis linked to Covid-era government loan due to be repaid by September

Staff at the British Council in Italy will go on strike over deep cuts that would slash about 80% of its workforce due to a funding crisis facing the organisation.

Out of 130 of its teaching staff across Rome, Milan and Naples, 108 are being targeted as teaching activities in Italy face the axe. The move would end 80 years of British Council English language teaching in Italy as part of the organisation’s global mission to promote British culture and education across the world, sources said.

Ahmed al-Doush’s health said to be in sharp decline since his arrest in 2024 in relation to social media posts

The wife of a British national who has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia since 2024 for social media posts, has pleaded for his release as his wellbeing declines.

In November, the UN working group on arbitrary detention found Ahmed al-Doush was being detained arbitrarily under international law and recommended his immediate release, as well as the payment of compensation. The findings followed its eight-month inquiry

King’s carefully crafted address to US Congress was the result of close liaison with aides, No 10 and Foreign Office

Donald Trump called it “fantastic”, Democrats cheered references to Magna Carta, while the joint session of the US Congress came together in giving it a standing ovation.

King Charles’s address to US lawmakers, while non-political, did not shy away from politics. And, though the president did not take offence – “He made a great speech, I was very jealous” – its pointed mentions of subjects the US president has previously disparaged were not lost on America.

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

• UK politics live – latest updates

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.