This is particularly wounding for Starmer because Doyle, like Mandelson, has since been embroiled in a scandal over his past association with a pedophile. (Mandelson resigned over the depth of his friendship with the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in September, while Doyle campaigned in 2017 for a friend who had been charged with child sex offenses, and was later convicted.)
It was in March 2025, when Robbins was making large numbers of career civil servants redundant in a restructure. He told MPs he was “under strict instruction” from No. 10’s private office not to discuss the offer with then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy. “I felt quite uncomfortable about it and I kept giving advice that I thought this would be very hard for the office, and was hard for me personally to defend,” he added.
“I don’t know what the origin of the suggestion was, and I don’t know who exactly was behind it or how serious it was,” he went on.
Doyle said after Robbins’ testimony that he had been unaware of any such discussion. “I have never sought any Head of Mission, Ambassador or any equivalent leadership-type posting,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “I was never aware of anyone speaking to the FCDO about such a role for me. My desire after leaving No10 was to stay in UK politics.”
Robbins aimed several other jibes at the PM, albeit in diplomatic language. He sought to correct Starmer’s insistence that Mandelson “failed” vetting, saying it was not that binary. “Apologies, chair, but others have [said it],” said Robbins pointedly.
He appeared to insinuate that someone in No. 10 leaked the vetting row to a newspaper. “The first I heard of this deep concern and briefing of it to the prime minister was only really hours before it appeared in The Guardian,” he said, with pursed lips.