19 April 2026
Only one person decided to appoint Lord Mandelson
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Once upon a time there was a ruler who made a bad decision.
All the courtiers and servants knew it was a bad decision, but they put into effect the bad decision, for the ruler had already made and proclaimed the decision.
And when it turned out to be a very bad decision indeed, those courtiers and servants were sacked by the now “furious” ruler.
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When the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom makes a bad decision it always seems that others must take the blame.
Of course, such shruggery is not unusual in politics: one does not usually become a Prime Minister by being the sort that resigns from jobs. That is not how one climbs what Disraeli called the greasy pole to Prime Ministerial office.
But when Keir Starmer appointed Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United States (thereby sacking a perfectly capable ambassador), it was very much his decision.
A decision which only the Prime Minister could make.
View differ on the reason for the appointment. Perhaps the sui generis problem of President Trump needed a sui generis appointment of a “Trump-Whisperer”. Perhaps, as many political journalists aver, it was simply because it was believed by senior Labour politicians that Mandelson somehow deserved a job in return for something or other.
The reason, however, really does not matter: it was plain that the Prime Minister had made a decision, and it was a decision announced as soon as possible.
And this is the important thing: it was the decision of the Prime Minister.
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Yet it is others who are having to resign: the ambassador, the chief of staff, and now the head official at the foreign office.
We do not have full information as to the vetting process (and it is itself a remarkable security failure that we all know as much about this vetting process as we do, if you think about it).
It may be there was some form of communication between the foreign office and Downing Street, even if deft or unspoken, or it may be that the foreign office did not pass on the results of the vetting process so to give effect to the Prime Minister had already and publicly decided.
In either case, the responsibility for the decision is with the Prime Minister.
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But the Prime Minister does not want to take responsibility for his decision.
He will keep sacking other people instead – none of whom made the decision, and none of whom are accountable to parliament for the decision that only he made.
Whether the Prime Minister misled parliament or the world at large about what he knew is now bogged-down in a depressing game of semantics.
What will not happen, it seems, is that the Prime Minister will take actual responsibility for his bad decision to appoint Mandelson as ambassador: for that would mean it was wrong of him to sack his chief of staff and the senior official at the foreign office.
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All this shows how important it was for the House of Commons to take the decisions on disclosure of papers related to Mandelson’s appointment out of the hands of the Prime Minister.
That vote by the House of Commons was of immense political and constitutional significance. Members of Parliament decided that the Prime Minister could not be trusted to apply “national security” in disclosure matters.
The consequences of that momentous vote are now becoming more and more obvious.
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Either we have Prime Ministerial accountability or we do not.
This is not a situation where a minister is being asked to take responsibility for decisions by officials – the Crichel Down situation.
That wider doctrine of ministerial accountability was always unrealistic: a minister cannot possibly know or approve of every decision in their department.
This is about a Prime Minister taking responsibility for their own decision – a high-level decision which only a Prime Minister can take.
And whatever further details is still come out about the matter, it will always have been the Prime Minister’s decision to appoint Mandelson.
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Once upon a time there was ruler who was “furious” at being expected to be a ruler.
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TY
“We do not have full information as to the vetting process (and it is itself a remarkable security failure that we all know as much about this vetting process as we do, if you think about it).”
The UK approach keeps far too much far too secret. The facts of any particular submission may need to be secret but that doesn’t require the process to be. A lot about the process has been deliberately leaked this weekend but the sky hasn’t fallen in. And secrecy often only means secrecy from the citizens and their representatives, as the villains know it already.
The Prime Minister made an appalling decision in pushing Mandelson for ambassador and should take the consequences.
Listening and reading the comments in the press and on the television, it is claimed that the details of a vetting process should not be communicated to ministers, which is accurate. However this does not cover the line manager from communicating the state of the vetting decision.
Whatever Robbins’ reasons for his inaction, he failed in his duty.
No one can dispute that Peter Mandelson was a bad choice as US Ambassador. The release of the Epstein files made that crystal clear. Whether he should resign depends on what he knew and when.
If the PM had known Mandelson failed the Developed Vetting process and overidden that advice then he should resign.
If the PM knew that Foreign Office had ignored the failure to pass vetting and appointed him because they believed it was what the PM wanted then he should resign.
If the PM has been shown to have lied over this then he should resign.
However the possibility remains that the PM was genuinely unaware that Mandelson failed DV and that the FO did not inform him that was the case. If that is the case then the PM should not have to resign.
I love how you avoid saying whose “bad choice” it was in your first sentence!
In my defence I did mention “the PM” in every other paragraph.
Excellent piece – thank you. Says it all, really. But as the Russians knew, there’s only so much you can hurl out of the troika when it’s being chased by the wolf pack.
I find myself thinking of the Analects of Confucius, Book XII, 11:
Duke Jing of Qi asked Confucius about government. Confucius replied, “Let the ruler be a ruler; the minister, a minister; the father, a father; the son, a son.” “Excellent,” said the duke. “Truly, if the ruler is not a ruler, the subject is not a subject, the father is not a father, and the son is not a son, though I have grain, will I get to eat it?”
Agree with all the above. ‘A bad choice was made’. Who made that decision? The answer is clear. Who should take responsibility for that decision? Anyone except the person who made it. A bit like a driver turning into a ‘No Entry’ road who then blames his passenger for not grabbing the wheel from him.
Judging by the reaction of my Labour-supporting family and friends, the PM is running out of people willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Few people expected passion or even ideological purity from Sir Keir. They did expect competence but that seems in very short supply.
Well, yes, I suppose.
But Mandelson was – given the background that has caused all the problems – the very best choice. ONLY for an ambassador to the court of king trump. In fact, at that time, he must have been the very first choice…….
So, given the way the diplo works (of which I have only a rather small experience), I can see exactly where they are coming from.
Oh with hindsight everything is so simple …….