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.
