Forty-eight hours of brutal public inquiry into British Prime Minister Keir Starmer¡¯s judgment have left him looking increasingly like a lame duck.
Starmer had already been battling for months to save his job before a former top Foreign Office official alleged on Tuesday that he was pressured by 10 Downing St. to approve Peter Mandelson¡¯s appointment as Britain¡¯s envoy to Washington. The official, Olly Robbins, told a parliamentary committee that the prime minister¡¯s office was ¡°dismissive¡± in its approach to the security vetting that would ultimately raise red flags about the Labour grandee¡¯s background.
Robbins¡¯ testimony, coming the day after Starmer himself faced a grilling in the House of Commons, provided a graphic postmortem of a personnel decision that has shaken the Labour government. The claims and counterclaims laid bare Starmer¡¯s struggle to adapt to U.S. President Donald Trump¡¯s return to power and his behind-the-scenes battle with the civil servants who manage the British state.
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