Where Olly Robbins relied on recollections, Cabinet Office’s top civil servant was at pains to link her account to paper trail Seen through the Westminster bubble, the Peter Mandelson vetting affair looks like an age-old conflict pitting ministers against mandarins. Yet the latest top civil servant to testify to parliament over what some are now calling “Mandygate” gave an intriguing account that suggested it has never been as simple as that.Cat Little, the top civil servant at the Cabinet Office, did not put it in these terms, but what she revealed was an extraordinary dispute between the country’s most senior civil servants. Continue reading...
Permanent secretary, Cat Little, to give evidence to foreign affairs committee as pressure increases on Keir Starmer The UK government budget came in below its annual borrowing target by £700m, official figures show – but the Iran war is likely to blow a hole in Rachel Reeves’s carefully calculated fiscal “headroom” over the coming months. Tom Knowles has the story.Good morning. As Kiran Stacey, Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot report in the Guardian’s splash, “Keir Starmer is looking increasingly isolated over his handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal with divisions emerging in cabinet over his decision to sack the Foreign Office civil servant Olly Robbins.” Continue reading...
Exclusive: Adrian Fulford will also examine wider national security vetting system after Foreign Office controversyUK politics live – latest updatesA retired high court judge is expected to review Peter Mandelson’s vetting process and the wider national security vetting system.The review, commissioned by Downing Street, comes after a Guardian investigation revealing that security officials decided Mandelson should not receive developed vetting clearance, but were overruled by the Foreign Office to allow him to become US ambassador. Continue reading...
Former UK ambassador to US was photographed in November outside George Osborne’s London homeThe former senior Labour figure Peter Mandelson faces a fixed-penalty notice after being caught urinating in public, it has emerged.Mandelson was photographed in the act while standing outside the home of the former chancellor George Osborne last November, shortly after he had been sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US over his relationship with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Continue reading...
Senior figures said to have been skeptical over Keir Starmer’s appointment of ‘arrogant’ veteran politician, later sacked over connections to Jeffrey EpsteinHello and welcome to the US politics live blog.Donald Trump’s presidential transition team repeatedly intervened in UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, it has been reported.Trump’s aides were particularly exercised that Mandelson could be made ambassador after he had made disparaging public remarks about the president in the past, according to both officials.Donald Trump created an extremely awkward moment for Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in the Oval Office on Thursday when he responded to a question from a Japanese reporter about why the US attacked Iran without warning allies like Japan, by joking about Imperial Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.Japan’s prime minister said later she explained to Trump that Japan’s ability to deploy military forces overseas, as he wants, is still limited by the constitution drafted for Japan by the United States after the second world war.A federal arts commission approved the final design for a 24-karat gold commemorative coin bearing Donald Trump’s image to celebrate the US’s 250th birthday on 4 July.The John F Kennedy Presidential Library foundation announced on Thursday that it is awarding Profile in Courage awards to staunch opponents of Donald Trump: the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell and the people of the Twin Cities of Minnesota.Senator Thom Tillis, the North Carolina Republican who has shown a willingness to cross Trump since he announced that he will not run for re-election, said he will not vote to eliminate the filibuster to force changes to US election law. Continue reading...
