And Then There Was Olly

Those of us who spent years in the senior civil service are well aware of the difference between being ‘thrown under the bus’ and ‘hoisted by one’s own petard’. 

Let’s be clear at the outset. The Mandelson saga started with the removal of Karen Pierce, a highly experienced and effective civil servant, from her post as UK ambassador to the US. Dame Karen was well regarded by officials and politicians on all sides (including presidents Trump and Biden) during her five-year tenure. No one has ever explained why the UK government thought it would be better to have her replaced by a political appointee – in this case, Peter Mandelson.

It is often said (by politicians) that career civil servants are too stuck in their ways and not responsive enough to political imperatives. What that usually means is that impartial civil servants take accountability and objectivity too seriously, and only political appointees are likely to serve their leaders unwaveringly.

The problem, when that kind of mantra is repeated ad nauseum, is that some civil servants begin to think that they should behave more like political appointees. If that should happen, it would be difficult to decipher whose ‘judgement’ one can trust.

With Dame Karen pulled from her ambassadorial post, the UK government moved to make Mandelson her replacement. A public announcement was made, but there was still the issue of high level security clearance. 

Enter Sir Olly Robbins. As Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office, he was the most senior civil servant of the department to which Mandelson would report. After Mandelson was arrested in February 2026 on suspicion of misconduct in public office for allegedly passing confidential government information (to Jeffrey Epstein in 2009–2010 while serving previously as Business Secretary), the media claimed that Mandelson was confirmed as the UK ambassador to the US despite his failing to get the required security clearance. 

As fast as lightning, rival politicians queued up to blame Keir Starmer and demanded his resignation. Almost as fast, Starmer said he was never informed of Mandelson failing to get the required security clearance, and sacked Olly Robbins. Then Sir Olly took centre stage and proclaimed Mandelson never failed to get his security clearance.

What?

According to Olly Robbins, there were three important things we should know about this Mandelson security clearance business.

First, he said the Cabinet Office suggested that there was perhaps not even the need to get security clearance for Mandelson as he was a member of the House of Lords, but his team at the Foreign Office insisted security vetting be carried out. The insinuation was that the Cabinet Office, under some steer from the Prime Minister perhaps, tried to avoid having any security vetting of Mandelson done. However, Robbins’ claim was rejected by his counterpart, Cat Little, the Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office, who told the Foreign Affairs Committee that it was actually the Foreign Office which suggested there might not be any need for security vetting of Mandelson, and it was the Cabinet Office that insisted on having it. (Where is the record of this kind of sensitive exchange, we ask)

Secondly, Olly Robbins was at pains to stress that he was under a lot of pressure to report on the outcome of the security vetting. That might have been to suggest that there was undue pressure from No.10 to ensure Mandelson get security clearance come what may. But all of us who have worked with Ministers and No.10, know very well that it is not unusual for their private office to chase up on progress relentlessly. “Is it done yet?” can be annoyingly repetitive, but there is nothing underhand there. Now if there is any reason why there is a problem with what private office is asking for on behalf of their Minister, the civil servant being pressed should put in writing what the problem is, explain what can be done, and request a formal response from private office. If Robbins was correct in emphasising that he never for one moment felt he was being pressured to do anything other than what he thought was appropriate to do, the ‘pressure’ he mentioned would just likely be the persistent chasing from private office colleagues.

Thirdly, Sir Olly came up with the most curious exposition of how Mandelson got his security clearance. The UKSV team – responsible for carrying out detailed security vetting – could recommend to the employing department one of three options: ‘Clearance Approved’; ‘Clearance Approved with Risk Management’; or ‘Clearance Denied or Withdrawn’. And in the case of Mandelson, UKSV unequivocally recommended to the Foreign Office the third option: ‘Clearance Denied or Withdrawn’. But according to Robbins, in a conversation he had with Ian Collard, Director of Security in the Foreign Office, about the vetting being done by the UKSV team, he was under the impression that UKSV was close to recommending against the granting of clearance (which in fact they did), which led him to decide – without seeing any documentation about the risks UKSV had identified or being aware of any pertinent details which he was in any case not supposed to know – to authorise the granting of Mandelson’s security clearance. (When Ian Collard was asked to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee to face questions about his discussion with Olly Robbins, the request was declined).

Olly Robbins maintained he gave Mandelson security clearance not because of any pressure from No.10, but because it was the right thing to do. And he insisted he judged it to be the right thing to do even though he had no access to the detailed findings of the UKSV team which explained why in their expert opinion Mandelson should not be granted security clearance. Yet how could he mitigate security risks about which he claimed to have no detailed knowledge of? And why when news broke that Mandelson failed his UKSV vetting, did he stay quiet instead of informing the Prime Minister that he gave Mandelson security clearance despite him failing the vetting process? Perhaps he was too keen to prove that he did not fit in with Starmer’s caricature of civil servants being “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline” – to show he could get things done.

Of course, giving advice Ministers may not like, or producing findings based on facts and not Ministerial preferences (whatever the pressure to the contrary), could all be bad for one’s career. But equally, some Ministers value integrity and impartiality. Members of the UKSV team would appear to possess such qualities. By contrast, those who try to do whatever it takes that they think will gratify their Minsters may end up with the most unpleasant surprise.

The ‘Ever More Drastic’ Swindle

It’s troubling how the ‘Ever More Drastic’ swindle can fool so many people, so easily. In politics, it tricks people into backing the most harmful policies, and has even led some well-meaning elected representatives into making unwise concessions to outrageous demands.

At its core, the swindle is fashioned by charlatans to con others into backing ever worsening ‘schemes’ despite problems evidently surfacing. For example, a con man would ask people to invest in a fund that would deliver double, treble returns. When the results prove disappointing, they double-down with why a further and larger injection of money is necessary to secure the massive returns they repeatedly promise. A corporate fraudster would use a similar ploy to sway shareholders to back a strategy that lines his own pocket but pushes the company towards financial collapse. At every turn, the claim would be that only more substantial funding for the strategy can save the day.

So long as people keep falling for the ‘more drastic action/money/change is needed’ line, and ignoring the evidence, the swindlers get away with it.

Unfortunately, not only is this scam widespread in personal and business dealings, entire countries can be seriously harmed when it becomes a political tool for scammers to gain influence, or even win public office.

For example, we get calls for more deregulation for big business, especially in environmental, financial, and technological sectors, so that they can be free to do what would ‘greatly benefit’ society. When pollution, climate chaos, economic crises, increasing loss of employment, viral spread of disinformation, show how each retreat from protective legislation leads to more dire consequences, we are told that it is all because deregulation has not gone far enough.

Action against immigrants is another area where what is being pushed for is never sufficient. Making our country a hostile destination for immigrants does not go far enough. We should therefore impose ever more stringent entry conditions for those who are actually needed to help our country; keep denying them the right to remain; move on to mass deportation, for illegal, even legal immigrants, or people who are not immigrants at all but just happen to have the ‘wrong’ colour skin. Each step leads to the next because improvement can only be realised when more drastic action is taken.

The Brexit case illustrates this too. Advocates such as Farage started by saying that the UK must leave the EU, but stressed that it would not mean leaving the Single Market. Then they claimed that the UK must not be part of the Single Market. When the UK had ceased to be part of the Single Market, and the severe negative impact on investment, trade, GDP were all widely noted, came the claim that Brexit had not been done thoroughly enough, and more drastic divergence from the EU must be pursued – though that would worsen the negative impact even further. But should that become visible for all to see, it would just be claimed that not enough had yet been done to break cooperation with the EU in every conceivable way.

What these examples show is that politicians who care about their country should not be defensive or give in to the scammers’ demands. Conceding grounds to swindlers’ pitch for ill-considered, harmful, counter-productive policies will not help anyone but the self-serving few who profit from damaging others’ lives. 

Put the spotlight on the con merchants. Question their lies. Expose the con.

The Inclusivist Convergence

Some people get ever so upset over the notion of inclusiveness. They rant about it being ‘politically correct’, dismiss it as ‘woke’, and cheer anyone pushing back against it. They react as though the natural order of things has been completely turned upside down.

But the advancement of inclusiveness is an integral part of human development, and has been happening for centuries. For anyone who thinks inclusive ideas are recent concoctions that emerged out of nowhere, it’s worth a look back to 17^th century England when a number of pressure points shifted society in a markedly inclusivist direction to save it from chaos, confusion, and collapse.

The first pressure point was to be found in the citadel of learning. Francis Bacon and his followers who went on to establish the Royal Society drew attention to the problem of widespread ignorance and interminable disputes. Despite the claims of those in church or university institutions asserting their authority over what counted as knowledge, there were vast number of matters about which no one could reliably say anything useful about at all. On many subjects, intense scholastic debates raged without anyone coming up with anything to settle convincingly that one side or the other was correct. In the meantime, new explorations and observations were casting doubt on numerous assumptions based on ancient writings or customary assumptions.

The Baconians – also termed the new philosophers, or simply scientists – pressed for a different approach. No individual, whatever their status, could tell us what is to be believed as a fact or theory on their say-so. The believability of claims must be linked to an open process of checks, evaluation, experimentation, evidence-gathering, that tests and weighs contesting claims to see which stands up best. Being open means that it should be inclusive for all who can contribute, with no presumption to keep out the input of anyone on irrelevant grounds. Rich, poor, Protestant, Catholic, English, French, no distinction was to be made when what mattered was what someone could add to the information, classification, and assessment of what was to be accepted or rejected as knowledge.

The second pressure point was located in the intersection of religion and morals – in what was meant to be the supreme guiding light for life. Here, the impact of the Reformation was keenly felt. The Catholic Church no longer had the monopoly in declaring and endorsing how people should live their lives. There was no united front on the Protestant side either. Despite King James wearing the crown for England and Scotland, the church leaders of those two nations had serious disagreements. Then numerous dissenting sects sprang up, each with irreconcilable differences from everyone else.

Deists from Herbert of Cherbury to the Third Earl of Shaftesbury responded, not by setting up yet another set of doctrines to be adopted by a minority, but by suggesting that what was important was the common faith in all people in relation to the highest goodness they would discern in their heart. Instead of holding that one religion or sect must have the answers that should be imposed on everyone, their focus moved to considering what everyone – calmly reflecting on their feelings about what would draw their approval or condemnation – would converge on in terms of their moral sensibilities. Doctrinaire divisions would never be healed, and no one had given any reason why their version of ‘god/goodness’ must override all contrary views. The only feasible way forward was to allow every moral being to share, explore, and establish the common ground for the ethics that could apply to them all.

The third and most explosive pressure point was connected to the sovereign power to rule. The determination of Charles I to disregard parliamentary objections led to the English Civil War in the 1640s which ended monarchical rule, and the restoration of the Stuarts was to be disrupted by the 1688 revolution which overthrew James II for trying to rule against parliament’s stance. The questions of who should decide key issues for the country, on what basis were people to obey or reject commands, were thrown open.

The Levellers, Gerard Winstanley, James Harrington, John Locke, Algernon Sidney, and others tackled these fundamental conflicts by pointing out that the only way of resolving who would have the sovereign power to rule was to accept that everyone needed to share in that power. We could not expect anyone to bow down in perpetual subjugation to another. Although they had different ideas as to how the inclusion would be actualised in practice, they all agreed that the people collectively, rather than some individual or group, would be the source of political authority.

A further three hundred years on from the 17^th century, the inclusivist ideas that emerged to deal with those three critical pressure points developed and converged towards a socio-political outlook that recognises the central importance of giving everyone the respect, opportunity, and share of power to shape the beliefs and rules that guide society. Inclusion is not some fanciful notion that had just appeared out of the blue. It is in fact one of our oldest, wisest, and most valuable traditions.

Trumputin, Europe, and the Ryder Cup

Since the 2010s, a number of political figures who virtually trademarked xenophobia as their core selling point have been found to be on particularly good terms with Putin’s Russia. Some received donations from Russian benefactors. Some held clandestine meetings to discuss common interests. Some secured sustained support from Russian troll farms in campaigns designed to back Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.

The dots are increasingly joining up to reveal a global network to advance anti-immigrant White nationalism. Putin has always viewed liberal Europe as the enemy on his doorstep. By positioning Russia as a champion of White nationalism, he has built tactical alliances with many anti-immigrant politicians across Europe, and cultivated a unique partnership with President Trump of the US. With their help, NATO is undermined, the EU diminished, and the UK weakened.

As the Xenophobic Axis continues to expand, we have seen Trump cutting support for Ukraine, not putting any pressure on Russia but instead giving them more time under the guise of ‘peace talks’ to press on with their invasion, while pushing for the surrendering of Ukrainian territories. Meanwhile, Trump threatens Europe with the US takeover of Greenland. In the new US National Security Strategy, support for Europe is deprioritised, and the focus is shifted to the US’s ‘own’ western hemisphere – changes openly welcomed by Russia. And in speeches at the World Economic Forum and elsewhere, Trump further delighted Putin and other xenophobic destabilisers of European democracies, by lambasting European countries for being inclusive towards non-White immigrants and refugees. 

With the emerging Trumputin doctrine – encapsulated by the photograph proudly displayed in the White House of the two presidents standing together – Europe is dismissed as a minor player that will not be able to stand up to Russian aggression from the east, and too weak to resist American bullying from the west. Leaders of xenophobic parties across Europe will have to choose to either carry on as sycophantic cheerleaders of Trumputin White nationalism (and thus ironically betray their own national interests), or wake up to the fact that their countries will only be strong when Europe is strong.

Now is not the time for Europe to fragment into a multitude of isolated countries that can be picked on (and picked off) one by one. Europe needs to be socially inclusive, democratically robust, economically open, and militarily prepared. It should guard against those who will besmirch, belittle, and even threaten their wellbeing. It must cooperate much more closely with other countries that are willing to develop mutual support and dependable partnerships.

The history of the Ryder Cup may serve as a geopolitical parable. Between 1933 and 1977, when the trophy was contested by Britain and the US, Britian only won it once out of 19 meetings. In 1979, Britain joined with others to compete for the Ryder Cup as Team Europe. In the 23 contests held since (up to 2025), Europe won 14 times.

The UK, or any European country on its own, is no match for the US. But Europe together can be confident in how it will fare in the world. For now, the US that fought with European patriots against Nazi White nationalism has gone AWOL. It is currently under the control of the Trumputin brand of White nationalism. If Europe is to repel the xenophobic forces unleashed in the service of Russian-American hegemony, it must stand firmly together for decency, prosperity, and democracy.

Helping Citizens Help Each Other

If children were left to grow up thinking it’s fine to steal from others, safe to jump off tall buildings, or commendable to harass anyone who speaks with a different accent, there would be an outcry about the failings of our education system.

It is no more acceptable for anyone to be brought up to believe that they should only ever care about themselves, or they are entitled to do as they please regardless of the consequences for others. Unfortunately, by design or default, many have acquired a mindset which assumes that doing anything that helps others must be inherently bad, and that one should always focus on what one wants.

The more people in society are moved by such inclinations, the worse it gets for society and its members. Instead of being well disposed and mentally equipped to pull together to tackle problems and make improvements that individuals on their own could not manage, we lose out because too many people keep rejecting collaboration, and ruining everyone’s prospects with their ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ tendencies.

What can we do? Just as we need to ensure our children learn about the importance of respecting others, understanding safety, and so on, we ought to make certain that everyone is given the support to develop their propensity and skills for helping each other. Through citizenship education – in its broadest sense – each and every generation should learn to work with others for their mutual benefits, and back policies and practices that serve the common good.

There are four main components to this.

Firstly, we should teach ‘Ideas and Examples’ that will help to explain why and how collaboration with others – through sharing suggestions, efforts, resources, etc. – can lead to better results for all. Draw on sociological studies and historical records to demonstrate how acting in accordance with mutual responsibility, cooperative enquiry, and citizen participation leads to more satisfactory outcomes than purely self-centred behaviour.

Secondly, we should inculcate ‘Practical Skills’ that will enable people to relate to others empathetically, work with colleagues constructively in finding solutions to problems, and seek the views of others in reaching decisions that reflect an informed consensus. It takes training to be open to diverse ideas without giving up on making considered judgement; and the ability to choose a well-founded answer should go hand-in-hand with the readiness to revise one’s position in the light of new evidence and argument. 

Thirdly, we need to provide ‘Utilisation Opportunities’ and encourage their take-up. People learn from doing, and opportunities should be developed for participation in community collaboration (e.g., familiarisation events, group activities for defining and pursuing common goals); open exploration (e.g., investigative projects, joint outreach and research); and inclusive engagement (e.g., deliberative assessment events; reflective decision forums).

Fourthly, we must bolster ‘Supportive Conditions’ across society so that as many structural obstacles to cooperative interactions as possible can be removed. This involves institutional policies at all levels to help promote togetherness (through backing shared missions, mutual respect, inclusive membership); secure objectivity (by requiring cooperative learning, critical re-examination, responsible communication); and strengthen power balance (with participatory decision-making, civic parity, public accountability)

A society that is riven by egocentric behaviour is no society at all. Citizens who want to live together successfully and harmoniously must learn to help each other.

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For more details on how to advance citizen learning, see ‘Citizens as Cooperative Problem-Solvers’ (available from the Citizen Network’s Library): https://citizen-network.org/library/citizens-as-cooperative-problemsolvers.html

Bias What Bias?

Ever notice the tendency amongst some to dismiss everything reported in the media as inevitably split between a right-wing and left-wing bias? On the surface, it sounds like a neutralist shrug to avoid taking side. But in practice it is often used as a tactic to excuse highly damaging distortions sought by certain media owners, and at the same time discredit valid observations by genuinely impartial journalists.

Let’s look at a few examples.

A White man is found to have shot numerous people dead. Another one has murdered politicians who had a liberal outlook. Yet another one has killed Blacks and Latinos because he wanted to get rid of them. They are reported as acting alone, mentally disturbed, with no implications for any other White person, or connections to any extremist propaganda. Now a Black person is arrested for stabbing someone to death. A murderer is discovered to be an asylum seeker. Someone shouting out ‘Allah’ has set off a bomb. Suddenly there is even more coverage about the threats posed by immigrants, discussions proliferate about keeping refugees out, and all Muslims are suspects – not a word about mental illness. Bias is to always excuse those you favour and blame everyone you dislike by superficially linking them to some wrongdoer. Objectivity is to examine each case on its own merit, and not make unwarranted generalisations.

Then there is the matter of public revenue and collective expenditure. Tax in every form is reported as money being taken away from people. But where is the report that shows what tax revenue will buy for people individually and their country as a whole? The education of children, the healthcare, the policing, the defence of the realm, environmental protection, and countless other support and services that we all rely on. Imagine if the media were to report people losing billions every day to businesses that charge them for numerous items. The news keep adding up the costs from multiple bills, but never mention what is being bought – food, heating, electricity, transport, clothes, entertainment, furniture, decorations, and so on. Bias is to focus relentlessly on the costs of public support, and not connecting them with the benefits they bring. Of course it would be biased to dwell on the benefits of public services without looking closely at taxes too – but no mainstream media in the West has ever been guilty of that.

How about financial rule breakers? On the one hand we have ferocious attacks on those who commit benefit frauds and are rigorously prosecuted by the authority. On the other hand, we have a few reports on those who commit tax frauds who are rarely prosecuted. Is it because the problem is so much worse with benefit cheats than tax fraudsters? Actually, it’s the other way round. In the UK, tax frauds cost the country almost 10 times more than benefit frauds [Note 1]. There is also little coverage of people in need who underclaim the benefits they are entitled to. With other financial matters such as the managing of savers’ money, many in the banking sector acted so irresponsibly that it led to a meltdown. There was no widespread media demands for their prosecution and imprisonment, and after their banks were bailed out, many even received bonuses.

We can multiply our examples with the contrasts between the attacks on unions for trying to influence government policies to support workers, and the defence of corporations in donating to, lobbying, collaborating with allies in government to put their interests first; between the sympathetic reporting of anti-immigrant protestors who cannot stand the sight of refugees, and the negative reports of people gathered to protest against the killing of defenceless children in Gaza; or between supportive reports of corporations withholding their investment and threatening business closures when they can’t get the level of returns they want, and the critical reports of workers going on strike when they can’t get the level of pay they seek.

If we look at the main media outlets – press and broadcast – we will certainly find many lodged firmly on the Right, there are some that are still managing a fair balance (though for that very reason they are arbitrarily lambasted as “Left-leaning”), and very few that routinely frame their stories with a Left-bias. 

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[Note 1: See https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/02/the-real-cheats-are-in-tax-not-benefits; other estimates range from 6 to 15 times worse for tax frauds. This does not even include money siphoned away through tax avoidance loopholes.

The May Fourth Movement

"A long time ago, in a country, not that far away... There came a time of revolution, when rebels united to challenge a tyrannical culture." 

Long before May the Fourth was coopted by movie fans as Star Wars Day, that date was significant for marking the beginning of the historical May Fourth Movement in China in 1919.  

The May Fourth Movement began with 4,000 university students gathering at Tiananmen in protest against the Treaty of Versailles. China was an ally of Britain and the US in WW1 against Germany, but when the war was over, Britain and others decided that the territories Germany had taken from China would be handed, not back to China, but to Japan (which in WW1 allied itself with Britain). This led to outrage in China, and many felt that their government was being humiliated despite all the Chinese lives that had been sacrificed in fighting the Germans (not just in China but in Europe too). Soon the disillusionment went deeper and the young generation in particular felt that the old stagnant Confucian culture had left China weak and incapable of progressive development.

There were three particular messages to emerge from the May Fourth challenge. First of all, those in charge of society cannot refuse to examine flaws or explore improvements in the name of ‘preserving tradition’. The protest was not about the abstract sanctity or obsoleteness of every traditional practice. It was about the actual problems that people could experience themselves – military threats, hunger, technological deficiency, lack of capability in finding practical solutions – and why they were being held back compared with other countries that had made notable progress. Traditions must be adapted if people are not to suffer from social and intellectual stagnation.

Secondly, national pride and internationalist openness are not incompatible. The Chinese students did not want their country to be treated as a weakling, and their response was not to press for China to be closed off and reflect on its own past glory, but to look outwards to see what they could learn from others, work with them, and make improvements in the light of how other countries such as Britain, the US, Japan had increased in strength and prosperity.

Thirdly, blind adherence to traditional (Confucian or otherwise) rules and practices should give way to careful learning from two teachers – Science and Democracy [Note 1], which had proven to be major factors in enabling the winners in WW1 to advance substantially in economic, political, cultural and technological terms [Note 2]. Instead of top-down edicts dictating what was to be read or not, what was to be explored or not, how new expressions and experiments were to be tried out, the people themselves should innovate and test what improvements could be achieved in diverse aspects of life.

These messages from the May Fourth Movement remain relevant today – for all countries. The openness, objectivity, and responsiveness at the heart of scientific investigation and democratic governance are vital for any society to adapt to changing circumstances and strengthen its capacity for peace and prosperity. Alas, in the years that followed the May Fourth Movement, China became increasingly torn by the autocratic Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek and the authoritarian leadership of Mao Zedong. A major figure of May Fourth, Hu Shi, criticised both sides for their rejection of democratic inclusion, and the tendency to impose their own ideas without allowing open examination of what solution would most likely work better. For him, we should always be steadfast in striving to be scientific in establishing what to believe, and democratic in reaching decisions that affect everyone.

If May Fourth should have a connection with popular culture, it is not with Star Wars’ mystical Jedi force, but with Star Trek’s United Federation of Planets, boldly advancing science and democracy across the final frontier.

Live long and prosper.

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Note 1: The students frequently spoke of the need for new teachers for their country in terms of bringing in ‘Mr. Science’ and ‘Mr. Democracy’. 

Note 2: For the students, the key allies China joined in defeating Germany in WW1 – Britain, France and the US, were all democracies that took scientific research seriously. Japan, which also joined the alliance in defeating Germany, Austria and Turkey, was in the 1910s also developing as a parliamentary democracy with extensive engagement with the development of science and technology.