Starmer’s Political Fate Rests With Top UK Official He Fired

Keir Starmer did what he could to get through a parliamentary showdown over his handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal. His fate may now rest with a bureaucrat little known outside Westminster.

The UK prime minister is halfway through two bruising days of public testimony on his decision to appoint Mandelson as ambassador to the US, a call which is threatening to bring down his premiership. A committee appearance on Tuesday by Olly Robbins, whom Starmer fired as the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s top civil servant, presents the next moment of peril in Starmer’s rocky tenure.