House of Commons

• Foreign Affairs Committee, evidence session with Sir Ollie Robins, 21 April 2026

• Foreign Affairs Committee, evidence session with Cat Little, 23 April 2026

Cabinet Office

• Part of a Return to an Address of the Honourable the House of Commons dated 4 February 2026 relating to the appointment of Lord Mandelson as HM Ambassador to Washington, Volume I

Please note, this transcript is automatically generated. There may consequently be minor errors and the text is not formatted according to our style guide. If you wish to reference or cite the transcript copy below, please first check against the audio version above.

Intro: [00:00:00] You are listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/pm.

Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox.

Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark D'Arcy. And coming up this week.

Ruth Fox: Keir Starmer's week of parliamentary torture in the chamber of the Commons and the committee corridor.

Mark D'Arcy: Is it deja vu all over again, as another Prime Minister faces allegations of misleading the House and the possibility of another privileges inquiry.

Ruth Fox: And as the first session of the Parliament elected in 2024 draws to its close, who are the stars and the characters of the now not so new intake.

Mark D'Arcy: But Ruth, let's start with this week's tumultuous [00:01:00] events in the House of Commons. It's been an excruciating week for Sir Keir Starmer. He had to make a very awkward statement to the House on Monday. The weeds of that were then ploughed through by the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday when they had the former Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office Olly Robbins before them to give his account of the process behind the appointment of Peter Mandelson, that disastrous appointment as Ambassador to Washington, and then the fun continued with a rather awkward Prime Minister's Question Time on Wednesday and more Foreign Affairs Committee hearings on the Thursday.

And to trawl through all this with us, we're delighted to be joined by the parliamentary journalist, Tony Grew, who's the person behind the PARLY feed on X, which traces all the events in the Commons all through the week.

Ruth Fox: Welcome Tony again to the podcast. Yeah, it's been quite week. I mean, I should say listeners, that this is a moving feast.

So as we are talking, there are things going off in the Commons that we're not able to watch live. So things may change a little bit by the time you are [00:02:00] listening to this, but it has been quite a week and essentially it began with, did Keir Starmer mislead the House of Commons about the vetting of Peter Mandelson? That is about as serious an accusation as can be made to the Prime Minister, you know.

Mark D'Arcy: Just ask Boris Johnson.

Ruth Fox: Yes. I mean, parliamentary democracy at its heart can't function if we can't uphold the principle that ministers are truthful at the dispatch box. My sense is that he's cleared of that accusation that the events as they've unfolded and the evidence that the Foreign Affairs Committee, if he misled the house, it was inadvertent and he did it without the requisite knowledge, which doesn't necessarily clear him entirely, but it clears him of that accusation.

Was that your impression, Tony?

Tony Grew: Yes, but I think it's also important to note that whether or not a Prime Minister has misled the House as a matter for the House of Commons to decide. And if you have a huge majority as Keir Starmer does, you shouldn't really be in a situation where that should be in peril.

I think we need to just take a step back and remind ourselves that a lot of this came about because the House of Commons insisted on the [00:03:00] release of documents to do with the appointment of Peter Mandelson. Now that was an interesting, a fascinating day in Parliament because sitting in the Press Gallery, you could sense the Government was losing the argument, Labour MP after Labour MP stood up and you realised that the Government was gonna have to concede on something no Government wants to concede on, which is release of documents of which the Government has no control.

So that was the first crack in the armour, as it were.

Ruth Fox: An extraordinary potential disclosure of documents. I mean, the breadth of it is just incredible. I still cannot get my head around the idea that they agreed to something so broad.

Tony Grew: And in a hostage of fortune, they said that classified documents, which is a classic thing, the Government would say, oh, we'd like you to see this document, it's classified, national security, blah, blah, blah. They actually said that the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is a Committee of Parliament appointed by the Prime Minister, so not like a normal select committee, they were gonna be involved in that process and they were gonna have some say. So I think it's important to take that back just to that stage so that the Prime Minister had already effectively lost the confidence of a significant number of his MPs regarding the appointment of Peter Mandelson.

And I think the second [00:04:00] thing that has to be said in this context is that for all the discussions about vetting and what the Prime Minister knew and what the Prime Minister did not know, he decided to appoint Peter Mandelson, he decided to go outside of the normal civil service procedure, which is that senior diplomats are appointed as ambassadors, not someone's friends. He decided to go against that process.

And so I think for Labour MPs, when they stand back from it, this is the latest in a series of misjudgments that the Prime Minister has made, not other people, that he has made, and I think it's important to put that in context. Monday was excruciating. It was excruciating to watch because Keir Starmer, he's trumped as this great lawyer, and yet one of the other things I find fascinating about him is that he doesn't use caveats as normal lawyers.

So for example, as I understand it. I am told, you know, these are the caveats, even when I'm broadcasting for the BBC, just as a humble journalist, I think I must say that this isn't something that I know, this is something that I've been told, it's a very basic thing. Yeah. Keir Starmer, the great lawyer, plunges in with things like, [00:05:00] all processes were followed and everything was tickety boo with this, and you just say, well, you don't really know that, why are you saying it in that way?

Mark D'Arcy: And that's where he's already getting himself into trouble, isn't it? Because having kicked up enough dust that it looks pretty clear that he didn't mislead the House on the original point about Mandelson, you're now getting into trouble over the statement that all proper processes were followed.

Tony Grew: Exactly.

Mark D'Arcy: Then there's an argument about, well, what is the proper process? And who says what the proper process is? And he was advised by his Cabinet Secretary, his top civil service advisor, that he should have Mandelson vetted before making the appointment. And he didn't follow that advice. Now in the civil service, I think proper process is what the cabinet Secretary says it is.

Tony Grew: Yeah, absolutely. And also it reminds me of during the Brexit period when British politicians would say things and you just think, they have the internet in Brussels, they can hear it, they can hear what you're saying and have an ability to respond. And I was thinking that when I was watching the Prime Minister on Monday, because he was saying things like I was misled.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah.

Tony Grew: And information was withheld from me, and I was thinking [00:06:00] he does realise that tomorrow, the person that he has sacked, the very senior and well-respected civil servant that he has just marched out the door, is gonna be appearing before a select committee. And he's gonna be given all the time in the world to answer what the Prime Minister had said.

Mark D'Arcy: But before we get to that, Tony.

Tony Grew: Sorry.

I'm skipping ahead as always. It's been such a traumatic week. I just wanna get past Monday.

Mark D'Arcy: It all telescopes. But before we leave Monday, sitting in the gallery, what were your impressions of the mood of Labour MPs as they watched that? Because this is the crucial audience for the Prime Minister now. His troops behind him on the Labour benches, on the government benches there, having to sit through yet another embarrassing moment where Starmer's appointed someone then had to unappoint them.

Were they stony faced? Were they supportive? Tell us about that.

Tony Grew: I was watching some of it and broadcasting at the same time, so I don't wanna give the impression I was there the whole time. I was also later that day in the House of Commons talking to Labour MPs, and I would put it like this, there are fewer and fewer of them who are willing to give their full [00:07:00] throated defence to the Prime Minister.

I think there is now pretty much amongst all of them, an expectation that he won't be leading them into the next election. And I think each time this sort of scandal or mess is created more and more Labour MPs despair and just think about the exit strategy, but in terms of what was happening in the chamber, no, there weren't a huge amount of MPs standing up and defending the Prime Minister. It was actually quite subdued. It was actually quite painful in a way.

Ruth Fox: Well, at one point they actually laugh at him. I mean, again, your point about he says some sort of quite odd things at the dispatch box in some ways because he doesn't give himself caveats. The other thing he came out with was that the House might find it incredible. The House might find this incredible. And everybody laughed.

Mark D'Arcy: Oops.

Tony Grew: That was some of the unreality of it. I cannot believe that he is posing as the outraged party here, and this is the key thing. I cannot believe that he's pretending that if only someone had told him that there was something wrong with Peter Mandelson, if only someone had pointed out that a man who was [00:08:00] twice sacked from the cabinet, a man whose business connections with our nation's enemies have been well rehearsed across the media for years, if only someone had said something. And that was what they were laughing at. And that was the least defensible part of the prospectus that he was attempting to put across, not just to his own MPs, but to the House of Commons and to the country. And that's why people laughed.

And that broke what was quite a tense, and you know, from a Labour point of view, quite embarrassing. But this is the thing you have to understand about these sort of events. The Prime Minister has to come to the House of Commons and explain himself. And every MP and every person in the press gallery and every person in the public gallery is sitting thinking, okay, let's hear it. Let's hear your explanation for this absolute mess that you've got to. And while he was going through this whole, I didn't know and things were withheld for me, and those nasty civil servants didn't tell me that, it was building and building and building, to this point where he said that and everyone just thought no, no, I'm sorry, Prime Minister, that is not credible. [00:09:00] What's not credible here is you coming here and telling us that you thought Peter Mandelson was as pure as the driven snow and that you decided, not Morgan McSweeney, your advisor who's a close associate of Mandelson, had been pushing for his appointment, no, it was all those nasty civil servants.

So I think that's the key point there. He had reached a level of incredibility himself. That everyone just found what he was saying at that point comical.

Mark D'Arcy: And it's not a great look for a Prime Minister, is it? That your excuse is, I wasn't told something, I mean, a Prime Minister has to build a machine around themselves to feed the information in that they need to take critical decisions.

If that machine is not working, it's the Prime Minister's fault. And throughout Starmer's tenure in Downing Street, that machine has repeatedly misfired. Sue Gray was in charge and was then extruded. Morgan McSweeney was in charge and was then extruded. Various other Downing Street grandees who are more important than any mere cabinet minister or MP, there's been quite a parade of them in and outta Downing Street as well.

So there's a question around the machine Keir Starmer has [00:10:00] built around himself. He doesn't look like an effective manager at the centre of government.

Ruth Fox: Well, I think that also extends to Parliament because his whips office operation, I think most people seem to say is not terribly well functioning. One of the reasons it's not well functioning is 'cause there are so many new MPs in it who are not experienced in the ways of Parliament, who don't have the sort of parliamentary political nouse that's needed. You have a chief whip who has been open, apparently in the corridors of Westminster, about actually not wanting the job of Chief Whip, Jonathan Reynolds. And then, I dunno what you thought, Tony, but I was just stunned when on social media we got the five six page document that somebody issued to Labour MPs as the lines to take for this prime ministerial statement on Monday with a set of pages of questions that they would be helpful if they were asked of the Prime Minister and then there was sort of, you know, some, I can't remember the wording, but essentially this is sort of private and [00:11:00] confidential and if you publish it, this may be illegal type thing,

Mark D'Arcy: And the chances of that not leading within the first 20 seconds.

Ruth Fox: You know, in the days of Tony Blair and and Alistair Campbell's operation, yes, you used to get PLP briefs and you used to get lines to take that were circulated and there was a lot of coordination behind the scenes, but in those days, we didn't have smartphones where you could take a picture of it and then it would be on the internet and social media within seconds.

It was much harder to publicise that kind of stuff. This was circulating on the internet within seconds of it being made available. And of course that meant immediately that any MP that stood up and asked one of those questions was gonna look like a complete numpty.

Tony Grew: I agree. I think it was just extraordinary.

Social media has obviously changed the nature and the pace of politics, and I think it is worth pointing out that there are more than 400 Labour MPs and it only takes one of them to leak that. What the Whips office tend not to do is see MPs as individuals, and if you did see them as individuals, you'd think, well, here are five individuals that we trust, there's five we don't, [00:12:00] here's five that we trust and we know are loyal. Why don't we just ask them?

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Tony Grew: You know, do this traditional thing called having a conversation face to face with someone. And say to them, why don't you ask this question? PM needs your support, that sort of thing. I think that sort of whipping has slightly gone outta fashion and sending emails is an impersonal way to try and manage people.

I'd say that I also think that Keir Starmer himself is very bad at managing his MPs. It was reported earlier this year that he'd only voted less than 10 times in this Parliament. That leads me to understand that he doesn't have any sense that if he's asking his MPs to vote for things that they don't want to, he should probably be there in the voting lobby with them. And I have positive and negative stories along those lines of MPs telling me when they were voting for things, and the Prime Minister was there and they were standing beside them and they had a conversation with them, and you know, I know that David Cameron would make an effort after PMQs to go up and into the members' dining room and sit down and talk to his MPs. And the point about that was that those MPs would then later on say to me, well, as I said to the Prime Minister.

And you know, there's a [00:13:00] sense that Keir Starmer doesn't understand Parliament. So I don't wanna be too hard on the Whips because all of our society has moved towards let's just send someone to WhatsApp. Let's just send them an email and not talk to them. And Mark, to your point, I think what frustrates MPs and the public is what the last, I used to describe the last government as, acting like concerned bystanders as opposed to the actual government.

And I think what frustrates MPs and the public is when the Prime Minister says about the decision he took, oh, well, I wasn't told this or I wasn't told that, MPs want to be loyal, but they need to have something to be loyal to.

If the Prime Minister came out all guns blazing and said, I'm not taking any criticism from you that mistakes were made and they were not my mistakes, but I take responsibility for them because I'm the Prime Minister and I'm in charge of everything that happens in this government, it would be much easier for Labour MPs to stand up and cheer.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. And picking up your point about Prime Ministers getting in there with the troops and chatting to them. The problem Keir Starmer has is having not done that for the first 18 months or so of his [00:14:00] premiership, were he now to start popping up in the tea room or the members' dining room after PMQs and chatting to people, it'd be seen as a sign of weakness.

He's doing this because he knows he's in trouble, so he hasn't built up the capital that would allow him to just mosey in and start chatting to the chaps.

Tony Grew: The Prime Minister derives his authority from MPs, every Prime Minister derives their authority from MPs, and as anyone who's a student of history will tell you the fact that Margaret Thatcher, when she was challenged for the leadership, refused to go and as she said, bow down to these MPs, was ultimately one of the things that did it in for her. There's an argument to be said that if she had gone around the tea rooms, stood in front of MPs and said, I'm your leader, this is what I've achieved, back me, she might well have won that second ballot.

It's a really basic thing, but if you're not what's called a House of Commons man, it can sometimes be difficult to understand that. But look, like I said, Labour MPs, they want to be loyal. They don't want the government to be in trouble. They want the government to get on with the priorities in which they were elected. A lot of them are just deeply frustrated that the government just keeps miring itself in these [00:15:00] issues.

Mark D'Arcy: And so the crisis rolls on to Tuesday.

Tony Grew: Oh God. Are we only at Tuesday?

Ruth Fox: There's a bit more to go.

Mark D'Arcy: And, as the parliamentary day dawns, Olly Robbins, the displaced sacked head of the Foreign Office is before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, chaired by Dame Emily Thornberry, and there are a couple of little historical notes to make here that as the general election was won by Labour, Dame Emily would've been expecting to be in Government as Attorney General. And she suddenly found herself replaced by what was then Sir Richard, quickly became Lord Hermer as Attorney General, and she was out in the cold and sympathetic MPs made her chair of the Foreign Affairs Select as a kind of consolation prize.

I'm gonna be slightly heretical as we start talking about the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing 'cause the Standing Orders of journalism forbid you from saying that MPs on the committee did a good job of questioning a witness, and I think that the MPs on this committee did a good job of questioning the witness.

Actually, I thought the Foreign Affairs [00:16:00] Committee, Dame Emily and then on downwards through Tory Deputy John Whittingdale and Edward Morello, the lead Lib Dem MP, right on down through to the rank and file members of the committee, all seemed to ask pretty good questions, and there was a remarkable lack of grandstanding.

Tony Grew: Yeah, select committees are one of the hidden gems I think of the Commons. A couple of things that I often, you know, notice about them. The first is they work as a pack. They meet beforehand and they discuss what questions they're gonna ask and the order in which they're gonna ask them, and what they're gonna try and get out of this witness, why this witness is appearing before them. So it's very different from a House of Commons chamber procedure where MPs might get one or two questions and no substance and no real answers.

The other thing I noticed when I was watching is how closely Emily Thornberry and John Whittingdale, who's a very experienced former minister, basically effectively her deputy, he's most senior Tory in the committee,

how they work together and how they work in an atmosphere of mutual respect. The whole committee works in an atmosphere of mutual respect, so it's very different from a House of Commons chamber procedure and that's across all select committees.

But I was [00:17:00] particularly noting that Dame Emily would start the questioning, then she'd turn into another member and say, oh, announce your turn to ask the questions you want. They have the ability to come back and ask supplementary questions later. It's a very courteous process and very often if you have an opportunity to watch a select committee, you'll come up knowing a lot more about a topic or a procedure or anything like that than you did going in day.

Emily's interesting, I would say, because she's been around more than 20 years she's been an MP. Tim Stanley, who is one of our finer journalists, wrote on X, he said, Thornberry has the right mix of authority and camp. It's what made this country great. And she responded here to serve, here to serve, tim.

But that, I think that really sums up what she was like. They had Olly Robbins before the committee. He said that morning he'd received a letter confirming he'd been sacked by the government, which, and you know, Olly Robbins was Private Secretary to Tony Blair, he worked closely with Gordon Brown, he was one of our Brexit negotiators under Theresa May, he has a solid 20 year plus

Mark D'Arcy: Stellar.

Tony Grew: Stellar [00:18:00] reputation. Has been one of the best civil servants that the country has. So at one point, towards the end, he said he didn't really know or understand why he'd been sacked, and he desperately felt sad about it because he missed this job.

At one point, he talked about how he was so worried about our diplomats in Tehran that he was in contact with them twice a day. So it just a sense of, what it's like to actually be the most senior civil servant in the foreign office. It's not running around talking about Peter Mandelson's vetting. It's a serious job that involves our reputation and people that work for our government across the world.

I just wanted to make that point because we've been talking a lot about the ins and outs, and that's one of the things that really struck me about it. But the other thing I wanted to say was that although he wouldn't name individual civil servants, he was very clear that by the time he arrived in the foreign office in January, 2025, Peter Mandelson had already been announced as the ambassador. The King's approval had already been sought. The US government had already given their permission. And so even if he had made a decision to withdraw or to stop that process, it would've been very difficult diplomatically for the UK to do that in any case.

Mark D'Arcy: [00:19:00] The fate had been accompli'd, you might say.

Tony Grew: Exactly. And one of the other things I found interesting was that this is the like literally the last days and hours of the Biden administration, and they were rushing them to get what's called agrement, which is just French for agreement. That's a process that happens with all ambassadors, where effectively they say to the country they're going to, are you okay with this person being appointed?

Now, the reason they wanted it done in the last days and hours of the Biden administration was they were concerned that when Donald Trump entered the White House, there might be more of an issue. There might be questions, there might be various back and forths, so they had good relationships with the Biden administration and the Biden administration effectively said, look, if you want, we're happy to give agrement, so that was an

Ruth Fox: Tony's very keen to get his French capacity across.

Tony Grew: And this is the thing about select committee hearings.

You get all this really interesting stuff that you weren't expecting to hear. You get all this detail. He went iinto incredibly interesting detail about this process of developed vetting and the idea [00:20:00] that Mandelson had failed. That's not how developed vetting works in the Foreign Office. They're presented with a risk profile, they're presented with a recommendation, but ultimately it's up to the Foreign Office to decide whether or not they can deal with, mitigate, the risks involved.

And like I said, this is a really unusual appointment for the Foreign Office because normally we appoint people that are actually qualified to do the job, diplomats with decades of experience. So it was interesting. I thought the committee did well. I thought all of them asked interesting questions, but most of select committees, everyone asks sensible questions and you find out interesting things. I think the focus on it was obvious because it was a really big issue. But it was interesting as well just to see the Prime Minister so comprehensively contradicted on every single point that he'd made in the chamber the

Mark D'Arcy: day before.

The big point that seemed to emerge from it was that Downing Street was essentially trying to bulldoze through the process as quickly as possible.

And expletive laden texts were referenced saying, just get it done. Now that the expletive laden text may turn out to be an urban myth. But there was certainly from Olly Robbins' account, [00:21:00] huge pressure just to get Mandelson approved and over the line.

Tony Grew: Exactly. And he was saying that, I think he referred to daily contact between his private office and Downing Street, Prime Minister Private Office.

One of the other things he said was that Downing Street was only interested in when can he go to Washington? When can we get him in the plane? So there was a lot of tussle around that and security clearance. So basically in the state of play, Prime Minister comes in Monday and says to the Commons, I was deceived and if only I'd known, if only I'd known. Olly Robbins rocks up to the committee and says, the day I arrived, he'd already been announced, the whole thing was already set in train, and it was inevitable. And the other thing he said was, and if I had tried to say no at that stage, that would've been diplomatically embarrassing for the country and would've left us with the Trump administration now in Washington going, what's going on?

Mark D'Arcy: I suppose possibly less diplomatically embarrassing than what's now happening, but still pretty excruciating.

Ruth Fox: I mean, essentially out of that, we got a sort of impression and it might change as a result of the evidence that's been given by Cat Little, and I understand that the developed vetting team head, [00:22:00] who's now no longer in the civil service, but he's been called before the Foreign Affairs Committee as well, so things might look slightly different, but on the impression of the first few days, essentially the Prime Minister wants everybody to think that his judgement that he made, knowing about the due diligence that had been made on Mandelson, that he would have been willing to overturn his judgement after having appointed him and announced it after having got the King's approval, after having got agrement, that he would have been willing to overturn that automatically, knowing that the developed vetting team had ticked or crossed a box, a red box on a form that the perm sec at the foreign office has never seen, and that alone would've led him to overturn his judgement. So again, there's this sort of era of incredulity about how this is working out. But in terms of Olly Robbins, and we've talked about Emily Thornberry's appearance at the committee, I mean, in terms of Olly Robbins, who must be under, well, you could sense it at the end, there's a certain degree of emotional pressure and stress. He's lost his job. He gave up a very good job in the private [00:23:00] sector to come back to the civil service. He's got the top job in the Foreign Office. All of the pressures that must come with that at this moment in our history, and he's been sacked for reasons he appears not to quite understand or know.

And it's all very public. My sense was his performance was really quite outstanding for a witness. If you were wanting to do a training session, Mark and put a video in front of, I don't know, a businessman who was under pressure going into a select committee and saying if you want a performance at a committee that you should model, that was it.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. Understand the detail of what you're gonna say. Say it. Have boundaries around things you are not going to say. Maintain politeness at all times. A bit of lightness of touch.

Ruth Fox: Bit of humour.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. At one point I think he said he couldn't speak to some historical precedent 'cause he'd been 12 at the time.

Tony Grew: That's right.

Ruth Fox: The one I liked was that the committee kept, they obviously ran quite long in terms of time and they were keeping him longer than I think probably he'd been expecting. And they kept saying thank you for your time. And he said at one point, well, very generous of you all to keep thanking me for my time. It turns out my diary's empty. [00:24:00]

Tony Grew: One other thing I noticed, it's a small thing, but it's important he knew the names of all the committee. So he'd refer to them by name. That was also really interesting thing.

Mark D'Arcy: So Mr. Morello or something.

Tony Grew: Yeah. And that's a really basic thing, but it shows courtesy.

The other thing I thought was impressive and look, he's been a very senior and high flying civil servant for a while, for a reason, was the polite but firm way in which he would correct them. So they'd say he'd failed vetting and he'd say, let me just explain that that's not the correct way to refer to what happened in the DV process, 'cause you don't fail or pass in the Foreign Office. And the polite way that he would reframe the point that they were trying to make, I thought was impressive. But like I said, at the end I thought, I felt there was a lot of sadness, that this man who had done a very good job for the country for many years in many different departments.

Mark D'Arcy: It was it's fair to say though, there was a point during Brexit where Olly Robbins is pretty high in the Brexit Demonology as one of the deep state operatives frustrating them. So they thought. And that seems to have [00:25:00] been at least forgotten, possibly even forgiven now.

Tony Grew: Well, it was interesting hearing Nigel Farage, who had had some choice words about Olly Robbins in the past, saying, oh, he's a fall guy for Keir Starmer. And you thought, well, that's nice. It's nice that he's now being acknowledged for what he is.

Ruth Fox: Before we move on from the Foreign Affairs Committee, though, I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. Because afterwards Dame Emily Thornberry and some other members of that committee, notably Dan Carden, Labour MP, have put things out on social media.

They've done media appearances, and Emily Thornberry has said publicly on the media that she thinks in light of what she sat through and the evidence that was given, she thinks actually the Prime Minister was right to sack him, Olly Robbins, Dan Carden came out and essentially said he didn't think the Prime Minister was right to have sacked him.

So you've got two Labour members of the Foreign Affairs Committee within 24 hours of that evidence session coming out and reaching different conclusions. That just feels to me a little bit uncomfortable about whether the committee [00:26:00] members should be coming out and giving a view on the basis of one evidence session about the sacking.

I presume there's gonna be some kind of report that will emerge out of this process. How are they then gonna put that report together and marry up everybody's views? And it may well be that they have to have a minority report, who knows? But that just seems a little bit problematic to me potentially going forward.

Tony Grew: I understand your point, but that is the heart of the matter. Should the Prime Minister have sacked him, and that's why, by the way, the allegation the Prime Minister had misled the House has sort of taken a bit of a back step now, is because on the one side you could argue, that he should have told the Prime Minister. But that leads us into a very difficult area, which is how much should the Prime Minister know? You know, if you wanna know everything, here's 10,000 facts before 10 o'clock that you should know Prime Minister because the Government does a lot of things, makes a lot of decisions. On the other hand, is it possible that the Prime Minister was unaware that there were problems with Peter Mandelson's appointment, that it was a high risk appointment?

I think it's also worth pointing out that there were lots [00:27:00] of very respected journalists and commentators and MPs who were saying what a brilliant idea it was to appoint Peter Mandelson to deal with an American president who is erratic, difficult, unpredictable. Any one of those would work, but you know what I mean?

So I guess my point is that it doesn't surprise me that different members came to different conclusions, but one of the things he said I thought was really interesting, and this is in the context of the Foreign Office does a lot more of this sort of vetting than any other department. I think he said thousands. And if not thousands, many hundreds of Foreign Office employees have to go through this vetting process. He said it has to be a locked box, and that is because people are asked deeply personal, often deeply embarrassing questions during this process. If anyone who goes through that process feels that that information would be shared with the minister or with other ministers or with other people in the department, then that will cause serious problems for national security.

And I think in terms of the Prime Minister saying he was misled, and I think that's an interesting point, developed vetting is a process that has to remain secret by its nature.

Ruth Fox: But here's the thing [00:28:00] though, if you are the Prime Minister and you have made a political, not a diplomatic appointment, a political appointment of somebody who is a prominent figure with reputational issues, let's put it like that, he goes through vetting.

It is exceptional enough that the Foreign Office has to put in place mitigations to deal with. Now Olly Robbins was very clear this was not about the Epstein scandal. This was clearly, I think, about his business interests and we know enough that he had to sell his shares in Global Counsel, the strategic communication firm he founded, we know from the due diligence report that has come out through the humble address, that there were references to those business interests, to the work that he was doing with, as you say, countries like China and Russia, and so on, where there were concerns. So it would not be a surprise that mitigations were put in place to deal with those.

I can understand the Foreign Office not wanting to go into the [00:29:00] detail or to go into the details of his personal life or his finances, or anything of that. What I find harder is that at no point would they say to the Prime Minister or to Number 10, he's passed the vetting, it's all fine, but we have put in place these mitigations because of those concerns that came up through the due diligence, particularly when they know that once Mandelson has been sacked, that these issues have been raised in Parliament.

Tony Grew: Yeah.

Ruth Fox: I get that. You can't go into the disclosure of information that Mandelson has given the Foreign Office. He's quite entitled as everybody is to that kind of privacy and confidentiality. But the fact that mitigations had to be put in place, I think that could and probably should have been conveyed to Number 10.

But equally, if I were the Prime Minister, I would want to know on the basis of the due diligence, right, what mitigations are we gonna need? The information wasn't passed on and the question was never asked.

Tony Grew: So what you're saying is because it's to do with business interests, you think the Prime Minister should have been told. What if it was to do with his personal life? Should the Prime Minister be [00:30:00] told that? Should mitigations if mitigations had to be put in place because, and I'm talking absolutely hypothetically here, and I'm not saying anything about Peter Mandelson, but someone's been appointed and they have a drink problem, and so mitigations have to be put in place that may make ensure that there's no drink served at receptions. That's just a hypothetical. Should the Prime Minister be told that, or is it just because it's to do with business that you think that he should be told?

Ruth Fox: No, I think if they're on a political appointment like this, given what was on the due diligence form, I would want to know if there were mitigations necessary and had they been put in place.

I wouldn't need to know the intricate detail of what they would be, but I would want to know yes, that mitigations had been deemed necessary.

Tony Grew: I mean, I take your point 'cause it's a political appointment, but there are thousands of people that work in the Foreign Office.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. But I think that's my difference.

Mark D'Arcy: But this is the biggest diplomatic post the UK has. This is the top job. This is the ambassador to Washington.

Ruth Fox: But for me, the point is that Ambassador, it's precisely a political appointment that the Prime Minister is making, not the Foreign Secretary or the head of the [00:31:00] Foreign Office making a normal diplomatic appointment.

Tony Grew: The Prime Minister went through his own due diligence procedure, didn't he? And apparently found nothing wrong with appointing Peter Mandelson. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the Foreign office, the reason why developed vetting has to be a locked box, not an open box, not the Prime Minister can ask what he wants to know about this person or that person is because the ultimate decision that was made is that the Foreign Office felt they could deal with internally, no reference to the Prime Minister, internally deal with the mitigations that would be required to appoint him.

I don't think it's appropriate to start discussing those with the Prime Minister.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, we've reached Tuesday lunchtime, and that's probably a good moment to take a quick breather. Back in a moment.

And we are back and in our chronicle of this fascinating parliamentary week. We've now reached Tuesday lunchtime and after lunch on Tuesday we had an emergency debate led by the Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, facing off, not against Sir Keir Starmer, but against the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister. Darren Jones, in his newly created [00:32:00] position, but Darren Jones seems to be the person whose job it has become to follow Keir Starmer around with a bucket and spade.

Ruth Fox: Human shield.

Mark D'Arcy: Human pinata, possibly.

Tony Grew: He is the Michael Ellis of this Parliament. Michael Ellis famously having to turn up to answer for Boris Johnson these repeated urgent questions.

What I found interesting about this debate was, it wasn't in the normal process, in other words, it wasn't opened by the government, it was opened by Kemi Badenoch, and it wasn't until the end that we heard from Darren Jones. So in the interim we had some left-wing Labour MPs took the opportunity to absolutely stick the boot into Peter Mandelson and the Labour organisation that he had run and say the whole thing was terrible and corrupt. And that was interesting.

What was also interesting was some of the more loyal speeches, some of them were a bit North Korea, quite frankly, and some of the newer MPs went a little bit over the top with their support for the Prime Minister and ended up becoming semi hysterical.

And then we had the opposition who obviously had a lot to say about the process and about the Prime Minister's judgement

But what I [00:33:00] also find interesting was that then Darren Jones, in his defence of the Prime Minister, said a lot of what Olly Robbins said in the committee backed up the Prime Minister's account, which I thought was an interesting approach from him.

Classic sort of emergency debate. So these are debates that are granted by the Speaker on an urgent matter that needs urgent discussion by the House of Commons. It was granted on the day before. It lasts for three hours. It's under a neutral motion, which means MPs don't vote on it. It's just the House has considered whatever it is they're considering. So from my point of view, they tend to be like a balloon that's slightly losing air out. It starts and all the sound and fury and then two and a half hours in you're like, oh, they're still doing this. Oh, they're still talking about this. So I think that's the day when a lot of the heat went outta the situation, frankly, because although Olly Robbins had given his evidence and put his side of the story, I actually think, certainly in parliamentary terms, the emergency debate just bored everyone.

Mark D'Arcy: And does it also have the effect of hardening the party lines? It becomes a bit more difficult for Labour MPs to go off piece if they're doing so in the face of a full frontal Conservative attack.

Tony Grew: You see, it wasn't a full frontal Conservative [00:34:00] attack. That's the point. It was just a lot of really quite dull speeches and a lot of process from Kemi Badenoch, which then led her at the end to say, oh, and he should go. He should resign, which is a big thing for a leader of the opposition. You don't get many chances as a leader of the opposition to call for the Prime Minister to resign. Because if you do it too often, it blunts It's boring. It blunts its attack. But even at that point, I felt, I think Kemi's gone slightly too far there.

Ed Davey for the Liberal Democrats was actually more talking about the catastrophic misjudgment the Prime Minister has made, has led us into the situation, I thought that was probably a more apposite. And like I said, from the Labour Party, it was either glee at their ability to stick the boot into Mandelson or these civil servants, I mean.

You know, so actually I think it was a bit of a deflated balloon by the time we got to the end. And Darren Jones is an honourable man, but he's not the most fiery of speakers. He'd have trouble as a baptist preacher in the southern states of the United States, if I could put it like that. So yeah, it sort of ended with a whimper rather than a bang, I would say.

I even think on Tuesday people were anticipating Prime [00:35:00] Minister's Questions on Wednesday. So by the time we got to the end of Tuesday, it was, we'll see what the PM has to say tomorrow and we'll see what lines Kemi Badenoch uses at PMQs on Wednesday. I'm trying to move this on to Wednesday,

Ruth Fox: So well let's go there then.

So Wednesday, PMQs, Keir Starmer gets up to answer the questions. He faces the usual barrage of half a dozen questions from Kemi Badenoch. Mark, what was your impression?

Mark D'Arcy: My impression of it was that it didn't take us a vast amount further forward, but there was, I think, a palpable credibility problem around him somehow. It just didn't seem like the answer of a Prime Minister that I wasn't told this, I didn't know that, I should have been informed of such and such. It just seemed that he was retreating into kind of legalistic defences and that's not a good place for a Prime Minister to be. His best moments I think came when he struck back at Kemi Badenoch for overplaying her hand, as you were describing earlier, and saying that she always does this. She did it over the Iran invasion. She did it over supporting Trump too easily. That was quite a credible hit back, but all the same. I [00:36:00] think you could almost feel the air going out of the Prime Minister as he just kept on having to answer these questions. And it wasn't just from Kemi Badenoch, it was also from Ed Davey, for example.

Tony Grew: Yeah, and like I said earlier, MPs really want something to be loyal to. They really want to support. The vast majority of Labour MPs were elected in July 2024 thinking, it's our chance, we can fundamentally change the country, let's get going, let's do all these things, and we're willing to take difficult decisions around the two child limit, for example.

Mark D'Arcy: Turned out they weren't.

Tony Grew: This is part of the problem. You are an MP, okay? You go to your constituency and your constituents complain about the tax on farming estates or the two child benefit cap, and you defend the Prime Minister and defend the government. And then on Monday, out of the clear blue sky, the Government just decides to change the policy and you look like an idiot.

And this has happened more than once. And that's part of the problem that Labour has with its MPs.

Mark D'Arcy: They marched up to the top of the hill and then marched back down again.

Tony Grew: Exactly, exactly. And what I'm trying to say is they want to be loyal, they want to defend, but if you look at this, you're thinking, what am I [00:37:00] defending here? Am I defending the appointment of Peter Mandelson? Well, no, apparently we're not, because that was a catastrophic mistake according to the Prime Minister. So what am I defending today? What am I gonna say to my constituents when I go to my constituency this weekend? And that's part of the problem.

Ruth Fox: And I think part of the problem is that this story isn't helping Labour, but it's not gonna help the Conservatives either. We talked about Boris Johnson. This just doubles down on the idea that the two main parties across the dispatch box have got reputational issues, questions about competence, ethical problems, it's jobs for the boys and jobs for cronies.

The one bit we haven't talked about in relation to the earlier evidence, just taking us back to Monday and Tuesday, Tuesday in particular, is of course we learned from Olly Robbins evidence that the Government was at least exploring tentatively a political appointment of as a diplomat for the communications head in 10 Downing Street, Matthew Doyle, who they then subsequently sent off to the House of Lords and he's now actually lost the Labour whip because there's allegations about his friendship with somebody who's now a convicted paedophile as well. So that story just [00:38:00] adds layers to it.

And if you remember, Mark, you go back to the humble address when back in March, the first tranche of documents was published, we talked about the fact there was a document in that tranche, which I don't think anybody else was talking about at the time, but it's a document from somebody in Number 10, I haven't got it in front of me, I can't remember who it was from, but it was to Sir Clive Alderton, the Private Secretary to the King, it's about the Mandelson appointment and it references the fact that the Government, the Prime Minister, was minded to make further political appointments.

Mark D'Arcy: And this turns out to be one of them.

Ruth Fox: And this is one of them. And the question I think is, well, what others were they considering?

Mark D'Arcy: And I think that was almost Starmer's worst moment in Prime Minister's Question Time, where he was asked whether he was gonna make this appointment, and his answer was to the effect of, yes, but nothing came of it.

Tony Grew: Yeah, that was a really striking moment because it was Sir Ed Davey who asked about it. And the Prime Minister gave a very sort of weak response to it along the lines of, oh, well, when people leave, you know, their friends try and ask if there are other jobs to them and you could just feel the Labour Party deflating.[00:39:00]

Ruth Fox: But there was also the point in relation to the Mandelson appointment and this whole question about vetting, and it came up in relation to Doyle as well. Well, if you're a member of House of Lords and a member of the Privy Council, did you need to be vetted? I mean, the idea that 800 members of the House of Lords could be appointed to one of the most senior diplomatic positions the country has to offer and wouldn't be vetted by virtue of the fact that they were a member of the House of Lords is a little worrying.

Tony Grew: Don't know what you're implying.

Mark D'Arcy: So we've got to the end of PMQs. As we are talking, the Foreign Affairs Committee has been having yet another evidence session, this time with Cat Little of the Cabinet Office who's been talking again about the appointment procedure and what Olly Robbins will have known and when he will have known it and what was passed onto the Prime Minister and the whole fandango is being unpicked yet again.

What seems to be coming out of it is that there's been a pretty straight bat deployed throughout all this. That nothing much has happened that's going to detonate Sir Keir Starmer's defence. And for that, we probably have to wait for the [00:40:00] next Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, which is due on Tuesday, where the star witness is going to be Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister's former chief of staff, and also someone who's been closely linked in his career with Peter Mandelson, who seems to have been one of the key forces pushing for Peter Mandelson's ambassadorial appointment in the first place.

Look ahead to that for us. Tony, what will the press pack be looking for out of that? Because Morgan McSweeney's a fairly elusive creature. He hasn't really been seen very much in public since his removal as chief of staff.

Tony Grew: Well, many observers would say that he is the reason why Peter Mandelson got the job. He was the one that pushed for it.

There's been some briefing that Keir Starmer was quite neutral on Mandelson. Wasn't a big supporter of his, but was persuaded that with the context of Donald Trump about to become US president, this was a good appointment. I'm not sure because we haven't really seen Morgan McSweeney speak that much in public.

So I'm not really sure if he's gonna come spill the beans in a Dominic Cummings type way. Remember when Dominic Cummings was sacked by Boris Johnson? [00:41:00] He did as much damage as he could to the Government. I'm not sure if Morgan McSweeney is that sort of character. So I'm not expecting a huge amount of it. I'm expecting him to stonewall and not to answer any of their questions.

Mark D'Arcy: I was thinking very much of the Dominic Cummings precedent when he appeared eventually before the committee that was investigating the handling of the pandemic. I remember sitting there doing live commentary for the BBC on that appearance and it was gobsmacking. From start to finish, a group of absolutely mesmerised MPs were getting the inside account of what went down at the highest levels of government during the pandemic, and then later on you had Dominic Cummings providing noises off to encourage people who were investigating the whole Boris parties affair, the lockdown breaking parties that he held.

So if Morgan McSweeney went that way, he presumably knows where all the bodies are buried. On the other hand, he may be much more of a loyalist to the project and to the leader who he served.

Tony Grew: Yeah, I agree. And I would be very surprised. As I said, I don't know Morgan Sweeney. I've never met him. I don't think I know anyone that's met him. I'm not sure he actually exists. [00:42:00] But I would be very surprised if he was gonna turn around at this stage and lay the boot into the Prime Minister, or give any revelation that hasn't already come out. As you said, he's a loyalist to Mandelson as much as he is to the PM.

Ruth Fox: And of course his wife is a Labour MP, Imogen Walker, and I think part of the Whips office operation now. That was one of the appointments that was problematic. You know, do you really want Prime Minister's chief of staff's wife being one of the Whips that MPs have got to liaise with and sometimes confess to about what they've been up to?

Tony Grew: I mean, my view of Morgan McSweeney is it's been a persistent problem in our Government for decades, which is people seem to think that the Prime Ministers have these sort of enforcers, the press run around after them and talk about them as the real Prime Minister.

And then it usually turns out they're terrible at their job and they have to leave in disgrace. And so I really thought that Keir Starmer's government would be one where we got away from this sort of big man type of politics and moved back towards a more collegiate cabinet government.

One of the things that I also think is interesting is some cabinet ministers have been [00:43:00] on the media and refused to defend at all this Matthew Doyle thing. I think it was Pat McFadden who said it wouldn't have been appropriate and he wasn't qualified to do that job. And similarly with the Mandelson thing, there's been gradations of support from the cabinet and that's

Mark D'Arcy: A bad sign.

Tony Grew: Exactly. That makes me think that things are not terminal for Keir Starmer, but like I said, the general understanding that he won't be leading them into the next election is becoming more and more apparent to people watching the Labour Party and people within the Labour Party.

Ruth Fox: The beginning of the end. Not end of the beginning

Mark D'Arcy: You;ve gotta work on your Churchillian cadences there, I think.

Tony Grew: But the other thing about that is there's just over three years to the next election. The questions that the Labour Party have to ask themselves if they've decided that they want a new leader are really fundamental.

And that is when is he gonna go? And much more importantly who will succeed him. They only get one chance at this. I get the sense

Ruth Fox: Well I don't know. Potentially they could have the same as the Conservatives

Tony Grew: But this is the point I was gonna make. I get the sense, I get a very strong sense from Labour MPs that it is not within their party's culture to bring [00:44:00] down leaders and prime ministers.

It is not within their party's culture to act like the Tories have acted in the last five years. And so that's when I say very seriously, even if you don't want Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, Labour MPs have to think very, very deeply about the process. So in other words, I think that Labour MPs would much prefer it if the Prime Minister himself came to the decision that for the good of the party and the country at some point in the next six months or a year, he would stand aside.

The second point is that actually leaves the Labour Party with a much longer period in which they can choose a leader. And that could also be significant. So you could have a situation where the Prime Minister indicates maybe even just privately to the cabinet that he's gonna leave, in say, six months. That could facilitate a situation where, for example, if the Prime Minister knows he's gonna leave, he can say, well, if I'm gonna leave, maybe Andy Burnham should be allowed back in Parliament. Maybe my colleagues should have the widest possible field of candidates to choose from. What I'm saying is there's a strong sense of the Labour Party that would like a managed and controlled process, that the party would have a good opportunity to discuss all of [00:45:00] their options before they decide who their next leader's gonna be, and most of all, they want to avoid what the Tories did, which is just cycling through Prime Ministers and this crisis that is created by Labour MPs, or sorry, in that case, Tory MPs trying to knife the leader.

Ruth Fox: Obviously the local elections are gonna be a major point in terms of the internal psychology of the Labour Party.

I mean, it's one thing to say now we know we're going to lose the Senedd, it's quite another to actually look at those stark numbers on the TV screen when they come through in the days following the local elections. So the reaction at that point will be important, but perhaps not sufficiently decisive.

Mark D'Arcy: And I think the other point that's always worth keeping an eye on here is that Labour MPs are gonna be leaving Westminster and most of them are going to be going out campaigning and they can expect a couple of pretty bruising weeks on the doorstep. And so that's going to feed into their deliberations about whether Keir Starmer remains a viable leader for them or not.

Ruth Fox: Although, interestingly, some of them have been saying that they're not picking up the Peter Mandelson story on the doorstep 'cause that's almost baked in. But what they are getting is the Matthew Doyle one. That this [00:46:00] idea of jobs for the boys and you know, the paedophile protectors party, which is a horrendous allusion for any politician to have to deal with.

But the other thing is they come back for the King's Speech on the 13th of May and you're into a new legislative programme. A new legislative session. But at the end of the day, the Labour MPs are gonna have to think about the timing of this because they can't let it run too long. Because once they get past the King's Speech, then internally the machinery of Whitehall will be starting if it hasn't already started working on the next King's Speech for the next cycle.

If the leader isn't in place to influence that programme, then it's almost too late, at least from a legislative perspective, to be doing much to influence this government's outcomes before the next election. Because you're running out of legislative time.

Tony Grew: I agree. And we talked about things being priced in.

What's priced in is that Labour are gonna have a disastrous time in Scotland, Wales, and in the local elections in England, particularly in London. What I'd [00:47:00] say to Labour MPs is. Take courage and take heart. It's perfectly normal for Governments to have catastrophic local election results and still come back and win the next election.

The Prime Minister, you know, you've got three years to play with, it's back to what I said. Is this the time? Really? Is this the moment? Is this the moment to move against him? Or should we wait and see how things pan out, out and see when we're two years out, for example.

Mark D'Arcy: One question that remains though is whether Keir Starmer gets a bit of a breathing space with the end of this parliamentary session.

When the febrile atmosphere disperses, because the MPs all gone back to their constituencies to go campaigning, does he, for example, get to face one final Prime Minister's Question Time before he goes? And I think that's a very, very interesting question because if Parliament's prorogued first thing on Wednesday morning, you don't then get a Prime Minister's Question Time. If it's a bit later, you do.

And just one point here that we ought to clarify, for those who are not familiar with some of the jargon we are using, prorogation is the end of a parliamentary cycle, a legislative cycle. It's when pretty much all the bills in play either have to be passed or they [00:48:00] fall.

There are a few that get carry overs, but it's the end of a parliamentary period, and that's different from just adjourning. Because prorogation is then followed by the start of a new cycle, a new King's Speech, a new bundle of legislation that a Government wants to pass. So it's a very big moment in the parliamentary calendar and a significant interruption, and it's not easily interrupted in itself.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, it's the end of the session, bookend to the King's Speech at the start of the session. And actually some of the procedures, you know, mirror what happens at the King's Speech. So black rod comes to the House of Commons to summon MPs. There'll be a Royal Commission in the House of Lords.

There'll be a King's Speech reflecting on the achievements of the session, of course written by the government. So it'd be interesting to see what they highlight.

Tony Grew: What I'd say is if we do have a Prime Minister's Questions Time next week, it won't be about Mandelson, it'll be about the local election. The whole thing will be about the local elections. It'll be the Prime Minister attacking Reform, attacking the Greens. And that will be the focus of it. So I think the Mandelson thing pretty much has passed in terms of PMQs, [00:49:00] in terms of timing. I'd be surprised if they prorogued rather than adjourned.

Just because, Ruth may know a little bit more about this than me, this Prorogation versus adjournment, what do you think the government will do?

Ruth Fox: Well, I think they'll prorogued because they've said that that's their intention and they've got the announcement to prorogue. So the official announcement from the Palace is that they can prorogue not earlier than the 29th of April and not later than the 6th of May.

So it can't be done earlier than Wednesday. They've then got essentially a week through to the day before the local elections. Now we had this discussion last week, Mark. I think it's easily ill advised to prorogue because it is much harder to then recall Parliament if there was an emergency of some kind.

Mark D'Arcy: And in the state of the world at the moment, you might well have one.

Ruth Fox: It's not impossible, you know, the death of the King. It's an automatic recall. Let's hope not. The use of the Civil Contingencies Act, the highest level of emergency legislation, it's never been used. But if we have a nuclear explosion or [00:50:00] an absolute huge tragedy of enormous proportions, then you might be looking at that again.

Let's hope not. The third scenario then is, well, the King could be asked to rip up the announcement and actually create the conditions for a recall of Parliament, but that's something that ought to be used in extremis. And not for something that is potentially foreseeable. And I just think for decent risk management, it would be better given the international situation that affects possibly what happens in the Gulf, but could have implications in terms of economic matters. And we don't know how that's all gonna pan out in the coming days. It would just be better risk management to adjourn and then to prorogue on the 6th of May. I mean, I actually think that's probably too early because that still gives them a prorogation of a week's length, but okay fine.

But my understanding is that's not what they're intending to do. They're intending to prorogue and then the question is, if they're doing that on Wednesday, it will only happen if and when they've got all their legislation through..

Mark D'Arcy: And if I was the opposition, I would play [00:51:00] hardball and string out some of the legislation if only to force Keir Starmer back to the dispatch box for one last PMQs, so you just twiddle your thumbs, send back another couple of amendments on whatever bills are still outstanding come Tuesday and require the Commons to deal with them on Wednesday after there's been a PMQs. Just to twist the knife.

Ruth Fox: But to take your point that you've made in previous episodes, that sometimes the Opposition likes the grievance, it might actually serve their purposes just as well for it to look like the Prime Minister is frit and isn't going to do pMQs.

Tony Grew: And you assume the Prime Minister wouldn't just send someone else and go, I'm busy.

I'm not doing Prime Minister's Questions. It wasn't on my schedule for this Wednesday.

Mark D'Arcy: I think that would look even worse, frankly.

Tony Grew: I think we overestimate how much the public pay attention to this sort of stuff.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. Maybe so. Well with that, let's take another little break and when we come back, let's contemplate what's happened during the session that's soon to come to an end.

Who are the heroes and maybe the zeroes who've emerged during those last few months.

Ruth Fox: See you in a minute.[00:52:00]

Well, we're back. And Tony, we're coming up to the dying days of the session before a new session starts. Obviously it's been an extended session nearly two years long since the June 2024 general election. Looking at the chamber in detail and looking at committees as you do, who are for you the breakout stars of this session?

Tony Grew: Well, the couple who've become ministers straight off the bat, which is unusual. The one that stands out to me is Zubir Ahmed, who's a transplant surgeon, who now works as a health minister. He wasn't appointed immediately. I think he became PPS to the Health Secretary and then came into the Department. He just has that confidence that comes from cutting people open and, no, no, genuinely, I've met him as well. He's a very personal, he's one of the big new intake of Scottish Labour MPs, who were almost extinct for a decade or so. So I'm a big fan of his. I'm a big fan of Steve Darling, who's a Liberal Democrat MP.

Ruth Fox: He's the one

Tony Grew: With the guide dog. He's blind, so he has a beautiful, uh, what sort of dog is it?

I'm not good on dogs [00:53:00]

Mark D'Arcy: I've never got close enough to pet him, but I think it's the first Commons dog since David Blunkett.

Tony Grew: I think you're right. And it's amazing to watch, particularly during divisions where Labour MPs will literally cross over the other side of the chamber just to give the dog a pat and a stroke and it brings a little bit of humanity. He himself is a very assiduous and thoughtful MP. So Steve Darling as well is another favourite of mine.

Ruth Fox: I've just googled it and I think it's a golden retriever called Jenny.

Tony Grew: I know the dog's called Jenny 'cause it was Jenny's birthday a few days ago and he was on social media talking about it. And another one of my favourites is a guy called Adam Jogee. He's a labour backbencher from Newcastle under Lyme. I knew Adam before he was an MP and he's the most ridiculously well connected person you ever met. And he was a parliamentary researcher for several years. And I'd walk into the strangers bar. He'd be sitting there. First of all, he is not supposed to be sitting in the strangers bar. And he'd be like, Tony, have you met a former Prime Minister of Australia? He'd be like, are you joking me? How do you not? He is great as an MP because he is friends with everybody. I mean the DUP adore him. His wife is from Northern Ireland and every [00:54:00] time he is in the adjournment debate, he makes a point, he's full of praise for all of these different MPs, DUP, even some of the Tories he likes. He's always picking up his own backbench colleagues. So he's an immensely popular MP and a lovely guy. So I wanted to mention him. And then finally, Aphra Brandreth, who is a Conservative MP,

Mark D'Arcy: Daughter of the famous Giles.

Tony Grew: Well, I wasn't gonna mention it, but yes, she's another backbencher. Assiduous. Always makes sense. So she's another one I think who is one of my favourites.

Mark D'Arcy: And she asked some pretty good questions actually, yeah, in the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing as well. So she was beavering away there. And it's always a bit of a compliment from your colleagues when as a new intake MP you get onto something as big as the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Tony Grew: Absolutely.

Mark D'Arcy: So obviously people rate her.

Tony Grew: And then a herogram for Nusrat Ghani and the other deputy speakers who've been fighting the good fight of new MPs. And indeed some of the MPs who've been there longer than 2024, who stand up and indiscriminately use the word you. Literally when it happens, no matter where I am, I find myself correcting, repeating it, i'm just literally you, they, he.

Ruth Fox: And this is about how you speak in the chamber and that you're [00:55:00] supposed to speak through the chair. You're not supposed to direct your comments, direct to the minister or the backbencher.

Tony Grew: Exactly. And a lot of people don't really understand it and think it's arcane, but it's not.

It's about keeping the debate one removed. And also if you stand up and start saying you, if you look back at the Hansard record, who are they referring to? You could refer to a hundred people in the room. So it's just great to see Nusrat Ghani just battling against this every day. And obviously, of course, alongside Nusrat, we actually have an all female deputy speaker team with Judith Cummins and Caroline Noakes.

Mark D'Arcy: Now one of the features of the incoming Starmer government was that several new MPs went straight through the pearl gates into ministerial office without having any time at all as a back bencher. People like Hamish Falconer, Georgia Gould, one of the hallmarks has been that to some extent, these are people who are Labour aristocracy. Georgia Gould's dad was Tony Blair's pollster, Charlie Falconer of course's Lord Chancellor under Tony Blair. So these are people whose parentage possibly helps them a little in these circumstances, but how have they performed?

Tony Grew: I mean, I wouldn't [00:56:00] say the Labour Party would ever go for that sort of privilege.

Mark D'Arcy: Hereditary principle.

Tony Grew: It's interesting. I just, I think it's worth mentioning that a huge change will be happening at the end of this Parliament, which is hereditary peers will no longer be sitting in the House of Lords. That has passed.

Ruth Fox: End of this session.

Tony Grew: Exactly. Not the end of this Parliament. That has passed almost unnoticed.

I mean, I think some, they've done fine. It must be a strange situation to be a minister as soon as you enter Parliament, and that's something that traditionally had never really happened.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, Harold Wilson famously made his maiden speech from the dispatch box as a minister in 1945, and it's actually in the first ever edition of Today in Parliament.

And they did that, Mr. JH Wilson, Parliamentary under Secretary of the Ministry of Works.

Tony Grew: I think what happened this time is they made maiden speeches from the backbenchers. I think it's so long ago that this part, I'm sorry, but I think I'm right in saying that they tended to make a speech unconventionally as a minister from the backbench, but because it was their maiden speech, it was sort of allowed.

I think Hamish Falconer has done a really good job and I think he's responsible for Middle East as well. So he's had a

Mark D'Arcy: Busy time

Tony Grew: A busy time, but he was a former Foreign Office official. So [00:57:00] in that sense, he understands what he's talking about, as it were. Not that other ministers don't. So he's done a good job.

I've also been a big fan of Miatta Fahnbulleh, who's the MP for Peckham. She's a very, very warm and competent presence and I just feel that the Labour Party should make a lot more of people like her and a lot less of people like Peter Mandelson,

Ruth Fox: Somebody who's impressed me at the ministerial dispatch box, a new MP parachuted straight into ministerial office, Al Carns, about which there is a lot of comment and speculation about whether he has leadership ambitions. We don't know. He commands the dispatch box. He's a big tall guy. You know, former special forces and you talk about an MP who has confidence 'cause he's used to cutting open people as a transplant surgeon.

I mean, Al Carns

Mark D'Arcy: He's used to cutting out people with other implements.

Ruth Fox: But he performs I think very well at the dispatch box for somebody who hasn't got that prior experience much in the Commons and commands the House. He's also got quite good humour, but he is also a decent communicator. I mean, some of his social media videos about what he's up to, both in the constituency and in terms of [00:58:00] ministerial office, I think are among the best that I've seen from MPs in this Parliament.

Tony Grew: Unlike the other ministers that I mentioned, they carry respect from the opposition. And that's important. That there may be some others who felt that they were parachuted in. People like Hamish and Miatta and Al, they deserve to be ministers. They've got the skills to be ministers.

And so it is often how your opposition responds to you that delineates how well you're gonna do in the House of Commons. But then a lot of people have got leadership ambitions, I think every, in their heart, deep down, every MP thinks a set of circumstances could come about in which I become, it could be you, it could be you in which they become Prime Minister.

Mark D'Arcy: It's one of the better jokes actually of the last few months in Parliament was when there was a defence debate, while there were lots of leadership speculation going on about Keir Starmer and Al Carns wasn't there as a military reservist, he was actually on exercise in I think Northern Norway or something, and Mark Francois, the Conservative MP and defence specialist, said that, of course the minister can't be with us today 'cause he's on manoeuvres and everybody tittered [00:59:00] knowingly.

Tony Grew: Leadership ambition, it's one of the stock things that people talk about at Westminster, but I'm not sure that the leadership is gonna be challenged in the next couple of months.

I think Keir Starmer will be there for longer than perhaps many people suspect. I don't think he'll be there in the next election. But like I said, for Labour MPs, the questions they need to sort out is who and when.

Mark D'Arcy: Watch out perhaps for a further promotion for Al Carns, which would bolster his potential leadership credentials. If Keir Starmer wants to stir the pot, that might be one way to do it.

Tony Grew: Well, absolutely, and like I said, it's also worth noting that if the Prime Minister does come to the conclusion that for the good of the country, he might want to stand down, don't think he won't have any influence in the process.

Both the process of election i.e. how long it will take and what the NEC will say in terms of what nominations people need and all that sort of stuff. But the Prime Minister will probably have least some influence on who the party might choose. And it's an interesting position to be a Prime Minister, where you know that your time of office is coming up, but it's not quite there yet. Boris Johnson [01:00:00] was three months, I think, from him announcing that he was gonna stand down until his successor, Liz Truss, was announced. I think it was around three months. Keir Starmer could easily have a much longer period than that in which to say to the country and the party, I'm gonna stand down, but I'm not just going just yet.

Mark D'Arcy: And begin the magical mystical process by which former prime ministers who were reviled when they're in office somehow become a national treasure.

Tony Grew: Yeah. But you have to be careful how you handle 'em.

There's a moment, I remember early in this Parliament where Rishi Sunak got up to ask a question, backbench MP Rishi Sunak got up to ask a question. I think it was agriculture questions, and you could see the minister who was about to answer, make this calculation. I can either be rude to him, or I can be effusively thankful to him, and I think they chose rightly. They stood up and they said, I'd like to thank the former Prime Minister for his question. He makes an excellent point. Maybe we could have a meeting about it. And I remember that exchange thinking that was the right way to do it.

Because Rishi Sunak was asking a question about his constituency, that was affecting his constituents. And so the minister thought, let's be magnanimous here. But you're right, there could be a [01:01:00] situation where Keir Starmer, when we get to the end of this Parliament, will be a respected former leader of the Labour Party, still an MP, the man that took us to victory in 2024. A good way to rehabilitate your reputation is to leave your job.

Ruth Fox: Well, that's Labour. What about the Conservatives? What do you make of the Conservative front bench? Because obviously with fewer in the ranks, they've had less options, in terms of choices of who Kemi Badenoch puts into the shadow cabinet. Who stands out?

Tony Grew: I think they're doing okay. Who stands out? Obviously Robert Jenrick. Oh no. Sorry, he's no longer with them. Kemi herself has done better than expected. There was a lot of speculation this time last year. A lot of people would've said, oh, she's not gonna last as leader. She's overcome that and she's proven to,

Ruth Fox: Her performances at the dispatch box are light years away from where they were when she first started. And that's confidence and experience.

Tony Grew: And yeah,

this is the thing, about Leaders of the Opposition. It's one of those jobs that you can grow into. Unlike Prime Minister, where you do need to hit the ground running. I think Stuart Andrew's always been very effective. Again, very human, good communicator, shadow Health Secretary, I think he's done a good job.

[01:02:00] And now I struggle to think who else is on the Shadow Front Bench.

Mark D'Arcy: Chris Philip's the Shadow Home Secretary.

Tony Grew: Yes, he's very enthusiastic. He always has had that sort of ambition.

Mark D'Arcy: Nick Timothy, a Shadow Justice Secretary behind the now departed Robert Jenrick.

Tony Grew: Yes. He used to work for Theresa May, didn't he?

Ruth Fox: He was chief of staff. I mean, he has made an impression in terms of parliamentary activity and getting his message out. If you remember, Mark, way back after the general election, we talked to Michael Crick about who might be the stars of this new Parliament, and we asked him then who were the new Conservative MPs he thought would stand out, and he gave us the name Katie Lam. She has been pretty prominent. She's quite ideological. There's been speculation that she might actually be one of those MPs that would defect a Reform. She's denied that. She's been very strong on immigration issues. But Michael highlighted her and her background and she does seem to me to be one of the backbenchers that stood out.

Tony Grew: She has stood out. But you know, the question is, has she stood out in a [01:03:00] good way? Has she become a figure of controversy? And also, like I said, it's a long time until the Conservatives are gonna be back in government. I even think in the next election, it's probably unlikely that they'll be back in government.

So it's a long old haul is what I'd say. So you can rise to prominence at this point in the Parliament. What you need to do then is sustain that level of being in the limelight.

Mark D'Arcy: And what about the Lib Dems? I mean, they've got the biggest third party Liberal contingent since the days of Asquith there. Ed Davey led them to that victory, essentially clowning his way to winning all those seats for them at the last general election. Maybe lining up to do the same thing again, or maybe someone else is gonna take over for him. Who are the breakout stars on the Lib Dem benches? Who might possibly do that?

Tony Grew: You're right, there's now 72 Lib Dem MPs. But it can be quite difficult in this Parliament for them to break out because we're no longer in a three party system. And behind them there are some noisier parties that are

Mark D'Arcy: Nigel Farage only has to burp and it's front page news in two national newspapers.

Tony Grew: Exactly. And it's one of the things you see, for example, at Prime Minister's questions, you'll see some Lib Dems sitting behind [01:04:00] Nigel Farage looking deeply uncomfortable in the chamber, 'cause there's so many Lib Dems they have to spread out. Josh Babarinde has caught my eye a little bit. I think he was elected to a party position and he seems like one of the bright young things of the Lib Dems.

But like I said, it's ironic for them because they've got the most MPs the Liberal Democrats have ever had as a party, and yet it's difficult for them to make headway in this Parliament.

Ruth Fox: One that I am quite interested in is Mike Martin, Liberal Democrat MP for Tunbridge Wells, who perhaps hasn't been prominent so much necessarily in the Chamber, but he's on the Defence Select Committee.

He's a former military officer, of which as we know, there's quite a few in this Parliament. But given where we are in internationally on defence and security issues, I always find him quite interesting and he does some superb social media post threads, which you can glean quite a lot of useful information and thinking from that.

So I find him quite interesting. And of course, with Foreign Affairs Committee, Mark, we were saying that we were quite impressed by Edward Morello.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, I mean he certainly looked quite impressive on the Foreign Affairs Committee during the [01:05:00] questioning of Olly Robbins, for example. I mean, going back to Mike Martin, I always remember the old Lib Dem joke about Paddy Ashdown

Of course, you've gotta remember that Paddy's professionally trained in stabbing people in the back, they used to say. So a military background though always helps, particularly somehow on the Lib Dems.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. What about then the other parties, the Green party and Reform? Nigel Farage obviously has made many attempts to get into Parliament. He's finally here. I wouldn't say he's an assiduous attender is my impression, but he has been in doing Westminster Hall debates. And he's asked parliamentary questions and so on. But I think probably their more prominent parliamentary representative, the person who's there more often and probably doing more, is Richard Tice.

Tony Grew: You're right. And I think that Nigel Farage is, I think it would be fair to say, a bit frustrated by the parliamentary process and by the House of Commons. If he doesn't ask the Prime Minister a question, people will comment that he's not there. If he does ask the Prime Minister a question, he gets nothing approaching an answer.

Mark D'Arcy: And he gets kind of drive by shootings by the Prime Minister and sometimes even [01:06:00] the Leader of the Opposition, you know, and of course we know that Reform does this, this and this, they back Trump.

Tony Grew: Exactly.

Mark D'Arcy: Whatever and it's thrown at him and he doesn't have the opportunity to respond.

Tony Grew: And to be fair to Nigel, for any new MP, it can take time to find your feet, understand the procedures, understand how to use, for example, Westminster Hall debates, written questions, that sort of thing.

I think Richard Tice has been more prominent in the chamber and I think he's becoming a, I wouldn't want to say a little bit more of a House of Commons man, 'cause he might take that as an insult, but I think he has been in the chamber a little bit more. And for the rest of Reform, well they've now got some new MPs, which is something that's happened in this session of Parliament. It'll be interesting to see how long they remain loyal to their leader. One of the problems with ambitious people is that they often want to take the top job themselves. I'm not saying that'll happen.

Mark D'Arcy: And both Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick have been spoken of as future Tory leaders when they're on the Conservative benches.

And I don't think they've completely abandoned ambition when they switched to Reform.

Tony Grew: I think Kemi Badenoch meant it when she said they're your responsibility now whenever Robert Jenrick left the [01:07:00] party. And then there's the Greens who have got more than one MP for the first time ever. But it's an interesting thing. This is the interesting thing about Parliament, 'cause Caroline Lucas was there for a long time.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah.

Tony Grew: She actually built up a bit of a parliamentary reputation, and so she would ironically actually be called more than the new Green MPs find themselves called. You're the Speaker, you think, oh, it's Caroline, yes, Caroline, you can obviously ask a question, whereas now there's four of them, I think it's actually, there's five of them now, five of them now, of course, sorry, I forgot.

It's actually a little bit more difficult for them to get attention than it would've been for her as the prominent only Green MP with sort of 10 years under her belt in the House of

Mark D'Arcy: Commons.

And the other thing that's happened to the Greens is that when Caroline Lucas was there, she was kind of the must have parliamentary accessory for any sort of cross party initiative. You know, you tick a box once you've got Caroline signed up. The Greens are now a threat to Labour in a way that Caroline Lucas just wasn't, or at least wasn't perceived as being.

And so they're now treated in a rather different way. There isn't that kind of streak of indulgencethat [01:08:00] Caroline Lucas sometimes had,

Tony Grew: But it's also interesting that the Greens now have a leader who's not in Parliament. Zack Polanski's a member of the London Assembly, but he is not a member of Parliament.

So at the start of this Parliament, we had both co-leaders of the Greens were elected. Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer. And now it's interesting that the Greens' focus has moved kind of outside Parliament. A lot of focus are on Zack Polanski in these local elections, and yet he doesn't sit in the House of Commons.

So it'd be interesting to know what they're thinking along those lines in Green Party HQ about how important they actually regard their parliamentary representation.

Mark D'Arcy: I think the right by-election cropping up in London and Zack Polanski might find it very, very hard to say no.

Tony Grew: Yes, but he might also find it very, very hard to win.

This is the other thing.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, that's the problem. That's the dilemma he may face.

Tony Grew: I mean, the Green Party, as you rightly pointed out, won in Gorton and Denton, but how much impact has it had for them in their parliamentary presence? I haven't seen Hannah Spencer. I'm sure she's a perfectly good assiduous MP, but it hasn't massively boosted the Greens' [01:09:00] influence in the chamber or their presence.

Ruth Fox: I mean, it's only a few weeks and she's got a fair, fair degree of media coverage, certainly. She's an interesting,

Tony Grew: It's all about social media with you.

Ruth Fox: Well, that's why I noticed, I can't sit and watch the committees and the chamber quite so much.

If listeners recall, we did a podcast with Ellie Chowns, who is now the Westminster leader, the parliamentary leader of the Green group just before Christmas, and worth listening to that episode, 'cause it's interesting on how they do balance that influence and leadership in Westminster with the fact that Zack Polanski has obviously got a great deal of attention and has boosted the party from outside Westminster. So it's an interesting episode.

Tony Grew: And I'm not being critical of them. Life isn't exclusively happening at Westminster and they have big elections to fight outside of Westminster, and they're hoping to have significant influence on councils across England and indeed in London. So, you know, I'm not saying everything has to be Parliament.

I'm just talking from my very narrow, limited worldview where everything has to happen basically [01:10:00] within the Palace of Westminster for me to notice it.

Ruth Fox: Well Mark, we've been going on for quite a while, so I think we're gonna have to draw things to a close or we'll be here all day. But after that canter around the Commons chamber, it leaves us of course with plenty of MPs to profile in future weeks.

Mark D'Arcy: Absolutely. Plenty of material yet to come in future pods

Ruth Fox: When we will meet again, I'm not sure because we don't quite know when prorogation will happen. We're assuming it will be next Wednesday, but it could run longer. But I think the plan is if Parliament has prorogued, we will not be doing an episode next week.

We will have our own prorogation of Parliament matters.

Mark D'Arcy: Yes.

We'll be sending in a Commission later on to doff caps.

Ruth Fox: And then we'll be back the following week, which would take us through to the local elections. And I think the plan is to not record on our usual Thursday, but on the Friday following the local elections.

Well, we won't have all the results certainly 'cause there's a lot of counting going on not on Thursday night, Friday morning, but actually on the Friday and Saturday. But I think we'll get a decent sense of direction of travel and responses [01:11:00] from the politicians. So we'll be able to reflect on those and think about what that means then for the following week with the King's Speech.

Mark D'Arcy: Absolutely. And indeed the future of Keir Starmer's premiership,

Ruth Fox: Indeed. So, Tony, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast, again. Pleasure to have you here. Listeners we'll be back in a couple of weeks time. In the meantime, if you've enjoyed the podcast, do remember to click that subscribe button in your podcast app.