Starmer Sacks Robbins Over Mandelson Vetting Fallout

0:00On April 24, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, just sacked Sir Ali Robbins, the top permanent secretary at the foreign office, because he didn't warn, about Peter Mandelson failing security vetting for the U.S. Ambassador job. Mandelson had major red flags, like his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and business links to Russia and China, but still got top clearance. Meanwhile, this move has Whitehall buzzing, pitting number 10 against the civil service machine. Dame Antonio Romeo, the cabinet secretary, and head of the civil service, apparently didn't stop the Prime Minister, even though sources say she, should have protected him from the backlash. Senior figures like Lord Simon McDonald, who clashed with Dame Antonio before, are furious, calling it throwing Sir Ali under the bus. McDonald led criticism of her own appointment back in February, citing her time as Consul General in New York. There, in 2016 and 2017, she faced probes over bullying staff and splashing over 120,000

1:01pounds on her kids, school fees, business class flights, and celebrity parties with folks like Anna Winter and Harvey Weinstein. An investigation found a case to answer, but it got quashed, and related files were later destroyed amid controversy. Now, with leaks flying in 4X cabinet secretaries piling on, the governments launched an inquiry into the story's source, stressing national. Security risks from all this vetting talk spilling out. It's a Whitehall showdown that's just heating up.