Olly Robbins and Mandelson’s vetting: what did he do, why – and who knew?

Starmer says ministers were in the dark, but friends of former top civil servant suggest it was a case of them looking the other way Fiddling with his reading glasses, the then cabinet secretary, Sir Chris Wormald – sitting alongside the most senior civil servant in the Foreign Office, Sir Olly Robbins – suddenly appeared a little tense. The bonhomie evident in earlier answers had quite disappeared. Continue reading...