Sir Olly will say ‘he did not see the UKSV’s formal recommendation’. You couldn’t make it up if you tried. - But did our civil servants? He’ll also say it was an ‘amber’ warning. We’ve been told it was ‘red’. Fgs.
Exactly so
Everyone gets that ministers can’t be involved in the vetting *process. But the result of the DV should, indeed must, be made known to them, both in principle (not to would facilitate corruption) & in practice (a UK ambo to DC needs the highest security clearance).
Keir Starmer’s clash with the civil service exposes three ironies
Today’s Must-Read. However…
www.thetimes.com/article/d68e...
Putin will be pleased
The Dog’s Gaze by Thomas Laqueur review – the art of the canine, from Velázquez to Picasso
This review by the rather special Kathryn Hughes is a total delight.
The Tory spouting this rubbish is, appropriately, called Bhatti
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on Saturday declared it was closing the Strait of Hormuz, just a day after the Iranian foreign minister said it was reopened, according to state media.
A decade on from Brexit, Britain still flounders without a place in the world www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Another Ollie
Gender ideologues run rings round Bridget Phillipson
Brilliant: a very serious issue, today’s Civil Service needs huge reform.
www.thetimes.com/article/b378...
What no one can dispute is that Sir Keir has a habit of appointing the wrong people and then sacking them. In principle I don’t think civil servants should be sacked to conceal political mistakes. But I also think they have a duty to speak truth unto power.
Yes
Yes.
Dear Andrew, How could Sir Olly have believed the verdict of the vetters was wrong? He couldn’t know what they did, his duty was to accept the verdict & tell the PM, whether he said he wanted to know it or not. But we all knew Mandelson was not trustworthy. It was a matter of public record.
You’re repeating the Ciaran Martin dodge, eliding between the *details of the failure (which remain confidential) with the *verdict (which self-evidently must not). I too think this is compelling: it was wrong & foolish for the PM to sack Robbins.
In which case Sir Olly took entirely the wrong decision bc M was an awful appt who had to be sacked. But I don’t believe this. I think Starmer instructed them all to protect him. We shall see. Many had high hopes for Starmer. He is probably the best PM on offer right now. But he has no judgement.
3. Either Starmer did know but was unable to deal with the knowledge - or he let it known he did not want to know (know something that was blindingly obvious to many people that M was untrustworthy).
2. Are you seriously telling me that a senior civil servant, who learns that the PM’s appointee is deemed untrustworthy, is right to ignore the UKSV view? And not to inform the PM who appointed him in some way?
1. Dear Andrew. Usually the simple explanations are the accurate ones. Starmer appointed Mandelson before he was DV’ed. A lot of folk (incl yrs truly) said it was an idiotic decision. Then he was DV’ed & failed. That would have destroyed Starmer who knew the vetting was underway of course…
I wonder why people who profess to be horrified by the practice aren’t shouting their delight from the rooftops…
Excuse me, Andrew, but the point of the DVing is to give a view (not the details perhaps) to appointers (The King, via PM & For Sec) as to the reliability of the potential appointee. It’s not a parlour game. Ok M was already in post (Starmer’s first error) but he could have been speedily recalled.
What was the point of the DV if Mandelson was going to carry on as ambo whatever the verdict?
So, if Sir Olly was right not to tell Starmer, it appears Starmer was right to say he didn’t know that Mandelson had not got thru the DV process. Mandelson had already been appointed of course. So had Starmer appointed him without a DV check? Was he kept in post in ignorance of the DV result?
Robbins did nothing wrong, says ally in fightback against Starmer
A confusing intervention by Prof Martin who says Olly Robbins had a duty *not to inform the PM that Mandelson had not been recommended by the vetters.
But it was NOT bad. Mandelson failed it. Not surprisingly. The very idea that the ‘process’ was poor is a fig-leaf, I’m afraid to say. It’s inconceivable Starmer did not know the verdict of what he called ‘the security services’. To reject it was a political decision. His.
The more exposure they have, the more the public realises they couldn’t run a whelk stall.
Keir Starmer in 2020: "I had 8,000 staff as Director of Public Prosecutions and when they had victories I celebrated on their behalf and when they made mistakes I carried the can.
"I never turn on my staff. You should never turn on your staff"
