1. Was proper vetting followed / did Mandelson pass security checks?

• Question raised: Whether “due process” and full security vetting had been followed before the appointment.
• Starmer’s answer: He told Parliament that due process had been followed.

2. Did Mandelson fail security vetting, and did Starmer know?

• Question raised: Whether Mandelson had failed security vetting and whether the Prime Minister knew at the time of appointment.
• Starmer’s answer: He said he was not informed that Mandelson had failed vetting and only learned later; he described this as “staggering” and “unforgivable.”

3. Did the Prime Minister mislead Parliament about the vetting process?

• Question raised: Allegations that Starmer misled MPs in earlier statements about the vetting and appointment.
• Starmer’s answer: His office stated he did not mislead Parliament, maintaining his statements were accurate based on the information he had.

4. Was there pressure from Downing Street to approve Mandelson?

• Question raised: Whether Starmer or his office applied pressure on officials to secure Mandelson’s appointment despite concerns.
• Starmer’s answer: Downing Street denied improper pressure, describing contacts with officials as standard.

5. What responsibility does Starmer take for the appointment?

• Question raised: Why he appointed Mandelson and whether he accepts responsibility.
• Starmer’s answer: He told the Commons: “I should not have appointed Peter Mandelson… I take responsibility… and I apologise.”

6. Why was Parliament not informed earlier about the vetting failure?

• Question raised: Why MPs were not told sooner and what the Prime Minister knew and when.
• Starmer’s answer: He said he himself had not been told about the failed vetting and that ministers were also unaware at the time.

INTRIGUING BACKGROUND

The Man Nobody Is Talking About. His Name Is Sir Philip Barton.

Buried inside Tuesday’s committee testimony, beneath the headlines about constant pressure, bullying and secret job searches, is the detail that may prove the most consequential of this entire affair. It concerns not Olly Robbins, not Morgan McSweeney, not even Keir Starmer. It concerns the man who was there before all of them. The man who said no. The man who then left his post eight months early.

Sir Philip Barton was the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office when Peter Mandelson’s appointment was announced in December 2024. He was, in other words, the most senior civil servant in the building at the precise moment the machinery of state was being directed to place a man with documented links to Russia and China into the most sensitive diplomatic posting in the Western alliance.

What Robbins told the committee on Tuesday is this. Barton pushed back. When the Cabinet Office argued that vetting Mandelson was unnecessary, that a peer and Privy Councillor did not require developed vetting, Barton refused to accept it. He insisted that vetting was a requirement. He had to be, in Robbins’s own words, very firm in person. He also voiced reservations about the appointment to Jonathan Powell, the National Security Adviser, reservations that were noted and not acted upon. He was worried, Robbins suggested, about exactly the same reputational risks that had been detailed to the Prime Minister before the appointment was announced.

Then Sir Philip Barton left his post. Eight months before his tenure would otherwise have concluded.

The question Richard Foord put to Robbins on Tuesday was the right one. Why did Barton’s tenure end early? Robbins said he did not know. He suggested ministers may have felt it was time for a change. That answer is not an answer. It is the absence of one.

Consider what the timeline now shows. A senior civil servant pushes back against the appointment, insists on vetting when the Cabinet Office wants to bypass it, raises reservations with the National Security Adviser, and departs eight months ahead of schedule. His replacement arrives to find the appointment already treated as a fait accompli, the vetting process under constant pressure from Downing Street, and the question of outcome entirely subordinate to the question of speed.

If Barton was removed because he stood in the way of this appointment, then Robbins was not the first civil servant sacrificed to protect it. He was the second. And the question of who else was moved aside, overruled or silenced in the months between December 2024 and the moment the security services finally said no, becomes the most important question this affair has yet produced.

Starmer sacked Robbins for following the rules. The Foreign Affairs Committee will now call Barton to give evidence. What he says will either confirm what the timeline already suggests or provide an alternative explanation that the evidence does not currently support.

There is a pattern here that goes beyond process failure. Process failures are random. They point in different directions. What this affair has produced is a series of events that point consistently in one direction. Officials who comply are retained. Officials who push back depart. The security services are bypassed. The vetting is treated as an administrative inconvenience. And the one question nobody at the top of this government will answer is why this appointment, this man, this post, mattered so much that every obstacle was removed to make it happen.

Barton apparently asked that question. He left eight months early. The country deserves to know why.

– Jim Chimirie, The Bruges Group (Facebook)

CONCLUSION

This begs the question, in view of his time as Director of Public Prosecutions (Head of the Crown Prosecution Service) 2008-2013 failing to crush the Muslim grooming gangs, what was the extent of his personal friendship not only Mandelson, who was connected with Russia and China as well as directly involved with paedophile Epstein, but also of Starmer’s own involvement with those nations and/or the criminal or perverted cronies?

AND??