Lord Simon McDonald, the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, has accused Number 10 of unfairly forcing Sir Olly Robbins to resign amid the Peter Mandelson security vetting scandal. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, McDonald said Robbins was 'basically thrown under the bus' and that the government needed a 'scalp' quickly after the Guardian revealed Mandelson had been appointed US ambassador despite failing vetting.
McDonald described the fallout as 'the biggest crisis in the diplomatic service' since he joined the Foreign Office in 1982. He criticised the lack of process or fairness, stating, 'I cannot see that there was any process, any fairness, any giving him the chance to set out his case, and that feels to me wrong.'
Scottish First Minister John Swinney has joined four other major party leaders—Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage, Ed Davey, and Zach Polanski—in calling for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to step down. Swinney lambasted Starmer's 'staggering' and 'startling' incompetence over the Mandelson affair.
Separately, Swinney defended his government's implementation of a 2025 Scottish Supreme Court ruling that sex is based on birth sex for the Equality Act 2010, despite former SNP MP Joanna Cherry calling him a 'coward' for failing to act decisively. Swinney said he was 'satisfied the Scottish government has taken the necessary steps.'
Meanwhile, Green Party MP Hannah Spencer accused Labour of 'offensively caricaturing' working-class people by ruling out a ban on greyhound racing in England, after Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the government had 'absolutely no plans' to follow Wales and Scotland in prohibiting the sport.
