{"id":336667,"date":"2026-04-21T21:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsisc.com\/videos\/very-bad-for-starmer-sacked-civil-servant-turns-on-government-over-mandelson\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T21:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:00:07","slug":"very-bad-for-starmer-sacked-civil-servant-turns-on-government-over-mandelson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsisc.com\/videos\/very-bad-for-starmer-sacked-civil-servant-turns-on-government-over-mandelson\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Very bad for Starmer\u2019 &#8211; sacked civil servant turns on government over Mandelson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.ytimg.com\/vi\/aDpIQLpxPV4\/hqdefault.jpg\" alt=\"\u2018Very bad for Starmer\u2019 - sacked civil servant turns on government over Mandelson\"><br \/> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aDpIQLpxPV4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p>Peter Mandelson&#8217;s appointment as ambassador by Sir Keir Starmer to the US was a rush-job, carried out under an &#8216;atmosphere of pressure&#8217; from 10 Downing Street and a &#8216;dismissive attitude&#8217; to security vetting.<\/p>\n<p>[Subscribe to our Substack newsletter: https:\/\/channel4news.substack.com\/subscribe]<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s the claim of Sir Olly Robbins, the sacked head of the foreign office as he was grilled by parliament&#8217;s foreign affairs committee. <\/p>\n<p>So, is it now clear what happened behind the scenes? <\/p>\n<p>No 10 denies Robbins\u2019 characterisation of events, but could this still be damning for Starmer&#8217;s premiership or has the PM&#8217;s decision to sack his senior mandarin been vindicated?<\/p>\n<p>On this episode of the Fourcast, Paul McNamara was joined by Labour MP Preet Kour Gill and also by one of Olly Robbins predecessors as head of the foreign office Lord Ricketts and former Labour advisor and political commentator Sonia Sodha.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>Get more news at our site &#8211; https:\/\/www.channel4.com\/news\/ <\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our Substack newsletter: https:\/\/channel4news.substack.com\/subscribe<\/p>\n<p>Follow us:<br \/>\nTikTok &#8211; https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@c4news<br \/>\nInstagram &#8211; https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/channel4news\/<br \/>\nTwitter &#8211; https:\/\/twitter.com\/Channel4News<br \/>\nFacebook &#8211; https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Channel4News\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peter Mandelson&#8217;s appointment as ambassador by Sir Keir Starmer to the US was a rush-job, carried out under an &#8216;atmosphere of pressure&#8217; from 10 Downing Street and a &#8216;dismissive attitude&#8217; to security vetting. [Subscribe to our Substack newsletter: https:\/\/channel4news.substack.com\/subscribe] That&#8217;s the claim of Sir Olly Robbins, the sacked head of the foreign office as he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":336668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[128813],"tags":[134724,147091,131493],"actors":[],"class_list":["post-336667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-channel-4-news","tag-appointment","tag-mandelsons","tag-peter"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u2018Very bad for Starmer\u2019 - sacked civil servant turns on government over Mandelson | News ISC Videos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Watch \u2018Very bad for Starmer\u2019 - sacked civil servant turns on government over Mandelson for free, here on News ISC. 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