Do Olly Robbins’ actions stand up to scrutiny? | Letters
While watching Olly Robbins give evidence at the Commons foreign affairs committee (Olly Robbins’ account of Mandelson vetting piles pressure on Keir Starmer, 21 April), what I heard was that Robbins – who boasted of his quarter century as a civil servant and who had been appointed to one of the highest positions in government – felt unable to resist the pressure of an unspecified source he called “Downing Street” regarding perhaps the most important and far-reaching foreign post of all.Robbins showed little will to discover the detail of Peter Mandelson’s failure to gain clearance and, incredibly and most unlike a civil servant, he decided not to keep a record of what he described as a “crucial” meeting.He also appeared to not distinguish between reporting the fact that there had been an issue with Mandelson’s clearance and explaining the details of the issue, which he correctly said should have remained confidential.But he then broke that principle by disclosing a specific element in the vetting, that the reservations about Mandelson did not involve links with Jeffrey Epstein.“I was new to the job” and it would have been “very difficult” to deny Mandelson clearance do not wash – he’s paid to do this kind of thing.
Could you trust this man to speak truth to power, to preserve constitutional values against pressure from elected officials? Or would you expect him just to go along with what was asked for?Paul GriseriLondon The controversy surrounding Peter Mandelson’s appointment is being framed as a matter of error and miscommunication.The evidence suggests something more serious.Olly Robbins’ testimony points to sustained pressure to secure the appointment, with little tolerance for delay.That is not a system reaching a conclusion; it is a conclusion being driven through a system.Keir Starmer’s case rests on a technocratic claim: trust the process.
But that depends on the process being free to operate before decisions are fixed.Here, the appointment was announced before security vetting had concluded, and the atmosphere described by Olly Robbins made refusal “very difficult indeed”.The prime minister says he was not informed of the adverse recommendation.That may be so.But if an appointment was sufficiently prioritised to be driven through the system, it is difficult to see how it was not equally central at the point where responsibility ultimately sits.
A system commands confidence only if it can contradict the decisions made in its name.If priority flows through it, but critical observation does not return, it ceases to safeguard and instead confirms.The question is not whether the system failed, but whether it was ever permitted to succeed in its most important function – to stop a decision.Dr Simon NiederChesterfield, Derbyshire The vetting row (Robbins response to ‘cover-up’ question reveals debate over Mandelson vetting file, 22 April) reminds me of a Home Office term I learned while seconded there in the 2000s: the “whim of iron”.It described how a minister’s casual remark could solidify into an apparently immovable instruction by the time it reached frontline staff.
We were ordered to pilot an initiative on an estate hit by a high‑profile murder.Local commanders said that it was the wrong place and proposed a better one.Civil servants insisted the location was fixed.Only when my boss met the minister did it emerge that it had been no more than an offhand thought and he was happy for us to listen to local concerns and change it.It’s a reminder of how easily a passing notion can harden into policy once it enters the system.
Terry O’Hara Maghull, Merseyside If we adapt Churchill’s famous comment about democracy, we can say that one thing worse than politicians running the country is people who are not politicians running the country (It’s a nightmare on Downing Street: Starmer has no one left to blame for this Mandelson horror show, 21 April),Geoff ReidWorsbrough, South Yorkshire Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section,
Vanessa’s a pillar of the hiking community | Brief letters
Your report (Campaigners seek listed status for historic trig points that mapped Britain, 16 April) didn’t mention the Vanessa trig point – Vanessa being a corruption of the Venesta company, which made cardboard tubes into which the concrete for the pillars was poured. These were designed for less accessible places, mostly in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. I was never less than half exhausted when I met one.Margaret SquiresSt Andrews, FifeThe Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link
Zoologist, author and presenter Desmond Morris dies aged 98
The zoologist Desmond Morris, perhaps best known for his book The Naked Ape and his work on the ITV programme Zoo Time, has died aged 98.Morris’s son Jason paid tribute to him after his death on Sunday, praising his many professional achievements as well as his role as a father and grandfather.“His was a lifetime of exploration, curiosity and creativity,” Jason said. “A zoologist, manwatcher, author and artist, he was still writing and painting right up until his death. He was a great man and an even better father and grandfather
V&A East Storehouse and Norwich Castle among finalists for museum of the year
The V&A East Storehouse, the National Gallery and an accessible castle in Norwich are among the contenders for this year’s Art Fund museum of the year award, the most prestigious UK prize in the sector.The annual prize offers the winner £120,000, with £20,000 going to each of the other finalists, who the Art Fund’s director, Jenny Waldman, said had all “innovated in different ways”.This year’s list is dominated by some of the biggest names in the cultural sector that have undergone big refurbishments or invested in significant new outposts, such as the V&A’s East Storehouse, which will be seen by many as a frontrunner.Based in the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, the space aims to reimagine what a storeroom can be, with partitions removed so visitors can see “and breathe the same air” as the objects. Waldman said the V&A Storehouse, which opened in spring 2025 at a cost of £65m, had broken the boundaries of what a store could be
Letter: Sir Neil Cossons obituary
In 1971, Neil Cossons and I were on the staff of Liverpool Museum, and he invited me to accompany him on a visit to Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire. We admired Blists Hill furnace, the bridge, the surrounding buildings and their setting, and shortly afterwards he became its director.The appeal it had as a monument to the industrial revolution lay in it being a complete entity. Many other site-based museums rely on translocating buildings, often into a replicated local landscape. History occurs in places, and Neil knew that raising one’s gaze from the built artefacts to the landscape enables understanding: preserving the place was crucial
‘Women want to experience pleasure’: how the female gaze caught the attention of film, TV and fiction
From passionate romantasy novels to premium television dramas, culture is bringing the agency, desires and interior lives of women to the fore. It’s proving good for business, but is this a permanent revolution?Do you voraciously read the pages of steamy romantasy bestsellers by Sarah J Maas or Rebecca Yarros? Or flood your group chat with breathless recaps of the latest goings-on in TV series such as Heated Rivalry or Bridgerton? Or even immerse yourself in the divisive and challenging cinematic worlds of Emerald Fennell? If so, you surely can’t have failed to notice that in pop culture, the female gaze – storytelling that highlights the meandering, textured, sublimely messy inner worlds and wants of women – is enjoying an explosion.On TV, you can see it everywhere, in the interior lives and desires taken up by Big Little Lies, Sirens or Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington’s Little Fires Everywhere. Romantasy harbours it in the shape of powerful maidens and sex in fae (fairy) realms, while Fennell’s Wuthering Heights and Promising Young Woman are marketed with the promise of converting women’s experiences into dark beauty on the big screen.A shift, a moment or a commercial juggernaut? That depends how deeply you look
Yann Martel: ‘I hate the rich people of this world – of which I’m one, because of Life of Pi’
Your novels Life of Pi, Beatrice and Virgil, and The High Mountains of Portugal all feature animals in starring roles. If you could be any animal, which would it be, and why?A sloth, because it has a peaceful, long life. Or maybe a koala. They both look like stoners. A sloth just hangs there in its tree, it sleeps 22 hours a day – or maybe it’s meditating
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