Yvette Cooper
The U.K.’s current foreign secretary was keen to remind MPs she wasn’t running the Foreign Office when the seeds of the Mandelson saga were sown.
Asked about the Doyle revelation in the House of Commons Tuesday, Cooper said: “Obviously, I was the home secretary at the time that I understand that took place, so I was not involved and do not know the circumstances.”
Robbins told MPs earlier Tuesday that he was “under strict instruction” from No. 10 not to discuss the possibility of Doyle’s posting with Lammy, something Cooper said she was “extremely concerned” about.
For good measure, she added Doyle would “not have been an appropriate appointment.”
Darren Jones
There are few ministers closer to Starmer than Jones, but it appears even the PM’s chief secretary has his limits.
During an interview with POLITICO’s Anne McElvoy, Jones pleaded ignorance when quizzed over accusations from Robbins that there had been a culture of fear inside Downing Street around Mandelson’s appointment.
“I wasn’t in the building at the time, so I can’t speak to it contemporaneously,” Jones said Tuesday at the Good Growth Foundation’s National Growth Debate.
He insisted: “I just don’t recognize” that the current No 10 culture is one of “fiefdom or fear.” If only he had been chief secretary at the time Mandelson was appointed.