Sir Olly Robbins

 

Sir Olly Robbins

In what other occupation could you get sacked and then demand £1 million from the employer who sacked you. That's what the civil service mandarin Sir Oliver (Olly) Robbins is doing. He wants to be paid the remainder of his five years contract as the Foreign Office permanent under-secretary, plus the value of missed pension payments. Peter Mandelson who was also sacked as British Ambassador to Washington, demanded that £500,000 compensation be paid to him. 

Sir Olly, insists that he followed Civil Service protocols in not disclosing personal vetting information to government ministers about Mandelson, but the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, says he was "furious" that he was kept in the dark about vetting. Sir Olly sees himself as a scapegoat and he's probably right. If he took legal action against the government for dismissing him, it could be costly for the government and politically embarrassing for Sir Keir Starmer. He'd also probably win his case.

We know that Robbins came under intense pressure to approve Mandelson becoming Britain's ambassador to the U.S. even though Mandelson failed security vetting. Why Starmer wanted a disgraced scum bag like Mandelson in the first place, says a lot about his poor political judgement.