Keir Starmer 'furious' he wasn't told about Mandelson failed security vetting — BBC Newscast

[0:00] That I wasn't told that Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting when he's appointed is staggering. [0:09] That I wasn't told that he'd failed security vetting when I was telling Parliament that due process had been followed is unforgivable. [0:18] Not only was I not told, no Minister was told. [0:22] And I'm absolutely furious about that. [0:24] What I intend to do is to go to Parliament on Monday to set out all the relevant facts in true transparency so Parliament has the full picture. [0:34] So a very angry sounding Keir Starmer there. [0:37] We can get an update from Chris about what's been going on in this episode of Newscast. [0:42] Hello, it's Adam in the Newscast studio. [0:44] And it is Chris at home. [0:46] So Chris, last time we were recording an episode of Newscast, it was on Thursday evening. [0:50] This story had emerged in The Guardian about Peter Mandelson's security vetting apparently being overruled by the Foreign Office. [0:57] I went home and ended my day. [1:00] Your day was just beginning. [1:02] It was really. [1:03] Yeah, it was. [1:04] So we'd just done a whole thing. [1:05] I may have mentioned it in the last episode. [1:07] We'd just done a whole thing where we'd, you know, we'd spoken to all of the opposition parties and they'd all reacted to the fact that Downing Street wasn't saying anything and blah, blah, blah. [1:15] And then at five to six, they did say something. [1:18] And so then we spoke to them all again and started afresh. [1:23] And then no sooner had I done the 10 o'clock news and I was heading home. [1:29] Then it turns out that Sir Ollie Robbins, he of the Foreign Office and the most senior job, or at least he was this time yesterday, is no longer because he is out on his ear, courtesy of this whole row. [1:43] So another casualty of this whole Peter Mandelson saga. [1:49] And so this was Ollie Robbins, Sir Oliver Robbins, who to listeners, long-time listeners of Brexitcast will remember him as Theresa May's main Brexit man. [1:57] And then he went into the private sector for a bit and then was brought back to sort of transform the Foreign Office as his most senior civil servant. [2:04] When you talk to people in and around number 10, what tale do they tell about why he had to go? [2:09] Well, they say that they were kind of gobsmacked and furious that they didn't find out about what he knew. [2:20] And so basically their contention is that was a massive failure on the part of the Foreign Office in general, [2:27] but him as the figurehead in the civil service in the Foreign Office in particular, [2:33] because why on earth, so goes the argument from Downing Street, would you not tell the Prime Minister, [2:38] so consequential a piece of information or set of pieces of information around the appointment of someone to such a high-profile role? [2:46] Now, I think what's interesting, Adam, as we record on Friday afternoon, is that there are friends of Ollie Robbins, [2:54] not least a professor called Kieran Martin, who has worked in the bowels of government and understands vetting procedures, [3:03] but also the handling of this kind of stuff, who makes the argument that not only, in his view, [3:09] did Ollie Robbins not act badly, he acted exactly how he should do in that role, [3:16] because the protocol is that this kind of stuff is incredibly sensitive, [3:22] because this kind of vetting, and I've spoken to various people today who've been through this kind of vetting, [3:26] it is incredibly invasive about your life. [3:30] And there's a recognition that it is that, because it has to be that, [3:33] but this sort of stuff shouldn't be sort of sprayed around on the, you know, the office WhatsApp group or whatever I say that to be facetious. [3:41] Or passed on to the Prime Minister in this case. [3:43] Yeah, exactly. So the argument is, it doesn't get passed on. [3:48] Now, what intrigues me is, is there a line between those two positions where someone like the Prime Minister [3:54] could find out the headline without finding out the detail, or find out the conclusion without finding out the detail? [4:01] By the way, I can tell you this afternoon that we've established that in these processes, [4:05] there's kind of a traffic light system, red, amber, green, or sort of yes, no, maybe, if you like, [4:11] where yes, is you clear, the maybe, the amber is the kind of, there's one or two things that you're going to have to mitigate, [4:19] or you're going to have to sell those shares, or whatever it might be, and then you're okay. [4:22] And then there's a no. And in Lord Mandelson's case, it was a no. [4:26] Right. So there's two things there. There's the actual result of the vetting, [4:34] and whether Ollie Robbins overruled that, or it was a more nuanced thing than that, [4:38] which is what friends of Ollie Robbins, like Kieran Martin, are saying. [4:41] And then there's the whole passing on the result of the vetting to ministers like the Foreign Secretary at the time, [4:46] David Lammy, or the Prime Minister. So there's sort of two strands of argument from friends of Ollie Robbins there. [4:52] Yeah, yeah, completely. And we may get, at the beginning of next week, we may get a sense, [4:57] or a greater sense of, well, these arguments playing out in public, [5:00] because the Prime Minister will be in the Commons on Monday talking about all of this, [5:03] and Ollie Robbins has been invited in front of the cross-party Foreign Affairs Select Committee [5:07] that scrutinises the Foreign Office on Tuesday. [5:10] Now, whether he turns up or accepts that particular invitation, let's see, [5:14] my understanding is that he is still on the payroll. [5:16] He is still, this weekend, a civil servant. [5:20] He's no longer running the Foreign Office. [5:22] He is still a civil servant, because you've got to go through the kind of necessary protocols around somebody departing. [5:28] And even looking at the conventions around this, [5:32] even if he wasn't, given that he has been until very recently, [5:36] that the convention would be, a committee could still say, [5:39] look, you need to come and talk to us. [5:41] And it may well be, and I'm speculating when I say this, [5:43] but it very well may be that he wants to come out and talk, [5:47] particularly given that at the moment there's a huge amount of folk, [5:49] you and me among them right now, you know, [5:52] talking about him and his job and what he's meant to do [5:56] and what he's not meant to do, etc., etc., etc. [5:58] And I suspect if you put yourself in his shoes, [6:00] you might think, I want to get out there and tell my side of the story, [6:03] particularly if you feel aggrieved, [6:05] as his friend Kieran Martin suggests he does, about what's happened. [6:09] So, Chris, that's what could happen next in public. [6:12] What's happening in private in terms of how people are reacting to this? [6:16] Well, Downing Street's furious. [6:17] The Foreign Secretary is furious. [6:21] I think on a human level, they're furious because, both of them, [6:25] because they feel let down. [6:26] I think from the Foreign Secretary's perspective, [6:30] she was a joint signatory alongside Ollie Robbins [6:33] to a letter to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee last autumn [6:38] that we now know didn't set out anywhere near as much [6:43] as the Foreign Office collectively knew. [6:48] So I think there's a sense of being let down there. [6:51] As I say, I think the Prime Minister feels that as well. [6:53] And then there's the politics around all of this, [6:55] which is that if you are the Prime Minister [6:57] and you are looking at a big set of elections [7:00] around Great Britain two weeks on Thursday [7:03] and postal votes landing on people's doormats from now on, [7:07] and you've managed to spend at least the last couple of weeks [7:10] without the words Lord and Mandelson featuring very much [7:12] on newscast and everywhere else, [7:15] and then suddenly it bursts back. [7:17] And it's not because it's the next deluge of documents, [7:20] which also may well come in the next couple of weeks, [7:22] which we knew about, which I don't know quite when, [7:24] but it's something kind of a bit left field of what? [7:26] You know, it's kind of in the file, what? [7:30] And you get another round of the Prime Minister [7:33] and others having to explain, [7:34] and when you're explaining, you're losing. [7:36] Then it's, you know, it's just that sort of sense, [7:39] I think, from lots of folk within the Labour Party [7:40] of, look, there's no upsides to this kind of stuff. [7:43] Now, how does that kind of coagulate, if at all? [7:46] Lots of Labour folk are out and about, you know, [7:49] knocking on doors and trying to make the case [7:50] that they're trying to make to the electorate [7:52] in different parts of Britain, et cetera, et cetera. [7:54] Parliament, crucially, at Westminster was not sitting on Friday, [7:57] so there wasn't that kind of petri dish [7:59] of chit-chat and gossip and gloom from Labour MPs. [8:04] I think, crucially, Adam, is not so much, [8:07] does this make those who have been sceptical for some time [8:11] repeat their scepticism? [8:13] And some of the off-the-record quotes you might be seeing [8:15] flying around are folk who are in that category. [8:18] But does it move to being people who, up until now, [8:20] have been sort of willing to put up with things [8:23] and come to the conclusion that they're no longer able to, [8:27] particularly, potentially, the other side of the elections, [8:29] given the projections look pretty bleak for Labour?