'I'm very cross with you': Starmer defender vs James O'Brien
Caller Claire brands the media's response to the Mandelson saga as 'obediently hysterical'.
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Former civil servant Olly Robbins has told a panel of MPs that denying clearance to Mandelson would have been a “very, very difficult problem” he would have been “landing the foreign secretary with and the prime minister."
He told the committee: "The PM's nominee had been put out there to the public, announced, blessed by the king, agreed by the US government. We were in receipt of formal letters from No 10 telling us to get on with it quickly. We had engineered agreement to arrive just before the inauguration.”
James O'Brien reacts to the beginning of Mr Robbins' testimony and debates with caller Claire who defends Keir Starmer for not 'second guessing' the Foreign Office.