Keir Starmer would do properly to study from this masterclass in loyalty | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Talk a couple of knockout blow! Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office boss who Keir Starmer scapegoated and sacked over the Mandelson affair, dealt our weasel PM a suckerpunch this week from which he may by no means get well. And now he’s the nation’s hero. “Robbins for PM,” they’re shouting. Well, truly they’re not. That’s simply me, however I would like it to be true as Robbins appears to be that rarity in politics – a good bloke with morals and rules.

At a Commons listening to this week, he made it crystal clear that, from the minute he took the job on the Foreign Office, he and his staff have been underneath relentless every day strain to get Mandelson appointed as a result of it was already a done-deal.

Some may say that Robbins’ gripping testimony was him sticking the knife into the person who’d simply finished for him. But it didn’t really feel like what he was saying was being finished out of malice or spite. He seemed like a good bloke who’s understandably hacked off that each he and his “brilliant staff” on the Foreign Office had been royally shafted by Starmer and his bully-boy mob in Number 10 over the Mandelson appointment.

What we noticed from him was a masterclass in loyalty and management that Starmer may do properly to study from – the lesson being do not drop your colleagues in it to save lots of your personal sorry bottom as a result of it WILL come again and chunk that bottom. And so, it has. As one commentator put it: “Olly Robbins got back on the bus he was thrown under by Starmer and reversed it over him.” But once more, it didn’t really feel like that. Robbins didn’t sound vengeful. He seemed like somebody who was doing what he needed to do extra in sorrow than in anger.

But what he did clarify was that Starmer’s plan – to stay it to the Foreign Office and stroll away unscathed – was by no means going to be allowed to occur. So he took Starmer down in a manner that was well mannered, charming however lethal. He delivered his reality bombs not angrily however politely – leaving us in little doubt that Starmer is a spiteful man.

The particulars of Robbins’ proof is difficult however the upshot is that, having simply began in Foreign Office, he felt pressured into waving by Mandelson’s appointment as Washington Ambassador and he stated it was made clear to him that No 10 wished him authorised at any value. “There was a very very strong expectation that Mandelson needed to be in post as soon as possible,” he recalled.

All of which beggars perception contemplating Mandelson’s properly documented hyperlinks with Russia and China and the very fact he’d been focused by Soviet Intelligence officers way back to the 80’s; additionally the very fact he’s been photographed on the yachts of Russian oligarchs and he was on the board of a Russian conglomerate known as, Sistema (not the Kiwi lunchbox makers), which has sturdy ties to the Russian state.

But, frankly, you’d must have been dwelling down a manhole for the previous 25 years – vetting or no vetting – to not know Mandelson was a nasty ‘un and would have been a huge risk to national security. Which is why Stramer’s cries of “I didn’t know anything” ring hole. Robbins prompt that Downing Street didn’t assume Mandelson wanted vetting which reveals how silly (or conniving and devious) they’re as a result of if any man wanted vetting from high to backside it’s the Prince of Darkness. Which is kinda what UK Security Vetting stated – however was ignored.

All that is going to convey a complete heap of contemporary bother to the ineffective Starmer’s door. And so it ought to. Because as Kemi Badenoch says, with all these “pressures” and no 10’s “dismissive angle”, it’s now clear that the due process he kept insisting was followed was not. “And so, Keir Starmer HAS misled the house,” she said.

And on top of all that, it turns out he also pressured Robbins into finding a cushy ambassador’s job for his mate Matthew Doyle – yet another friend of a paedo. Doyle was his very average press secretary who was going to be rewarded for his averageness by his mate Keir with a nice flashy ambassador’s post.

Robbins was particularly hacked off about this because he said at the time he was sacking decent ambassadors because of lack of money – yet was being forced to give a job to a mate of the PM. Even worse, he was told it must be kept secret. Remember how Starmer used to rage against the Tories about cronyism – well this is it in its purest form,

So, what happens now? Well, it looks like Starmer’s Cabinet and his backbenchers are turning on him. The Cabinet is angry at the shoddy way Robbins was treated and because Starmer has now poisoned relations between the Civil Service and government. And his backbenchers are angry that their PM has reduced the government and the Labour Party to a laughing stock. Yvette Cooper is publicly having a go at Starmer for not telling Dávid Lammy, the then Foreign Secretary, about the ambassador’s job for Doyle.

Ed Miliband is now publicly saying he too warned at the time that the Mandelson appointment would “blow up” in Starmer’s face. He’s also said on TV this week that Starmer made a huge mistake in appointing Mandelson. And Work and Pensions boss Pat McFadden refused to endorse Starmer’s sacking of Robbins.

In the Commons this week when Starmer was doing his Three Monkeys routine –- “Heard No Evil, Saw No Evil, Spoke No evil” – his own backbenchers, as well as the rest of the House, were openly laughing. And who knew we’d all be clapping Dianne Abbot and Emily Thornberry who made it quite clear they didn’t believe a word their leader was saying.

Reform’s Lee Anderson was even thrown out of the House for saying: “That man couldn’t lie straight in bed.” It’s like a bad pantomime.

And what was this Mandelson appointment that Starmer so desperately wanted to happen all about? Like everything he does, it was nothing to do with the national interest and everything to do with his own interests. He wanted Mandelson in Washington to build bridges between him and Trump – who he knew thought him to be a fool. Starmer thought Mandelson could persuade Trump otherwise and so help him to hang onto his job AND the ‘Special Relationship’.

So now we have a Prime Minister who is hated by voters, hated by his party and whose cabinet are on the verge of mutiny. So how long can he stay? How many more human sacrifices will he make to help save himself before he finally realises he’s unsavable.

He’s probably got until after the local elections where, if he gets the drubbing we expect him to get, the vultures waiting in the wings for his job will move on him – and it will be bloody. But think about this – while Starmer is THE most useless Prime Minister this country has ever had, just think about the person tipped to replace him – Angela Rayner (who’d have Ed Miliband as her chancellor).

She will in a short time present us that when it comes to incompetence, Starmer is a rank beginner. The lady is as thick as mince and has all of the diplomatic expertise of a raging bull. Poor Britain – to have been ruined by such immorality and such mediocrity…