Olly Robbins gave MPs a textbook performance of civil service sophistry this week, proving that Yes Minister wasn't just a satire - it was a training manual. Keir Starmer, in a move that would make Sir Humphrey proud, fired Robbins as the Foreign Office's permanent secretary after failing to inform him that Peter Mandelson didn't pass his vetting for US ambassador. But Robbins, before the foreign affairs select committee, deployed the kind of linguistic gymnastics that would have made Margaret Thatcher's favourite show blush: "I was told - let me be completely precise - that UKSV were leaning towards recommending against, but accepted it was a borderline case." Cabinet ministers emerged scratching their heads, questioning the PM's judgment.
Former Conservative prisons minister Ann Widdecombe, watching from the sidelines like a seasoned drama critic, saw the parallels with her own Michael Howard-era dust-up. In 1997, Jeremy Paxman famously asked Howard the same question 12 times on Newsnight: "Did you threaten to overrule him?" The "him" was Derek Lewis, the prison service boss, and the whole affair ended with Widdecombe accusing Howard of having "something of the night" about him. Howard's supporters retaliated by claiming Lewis had "wooed" Widdecombe with flowers and chocolates - which she denied with characteristic flair: "He hadn't sent me a petal - and because of my girth no friend would buy me flowers." Widdecombe's warning for Starmer: senior civil servants know where the bodies are buried, the public hates scapegoating, and sacking them invites scrutiny that rarely ends well.
The Blair years offered their own cautionary tales. Martin Sixsmith got a £250,000 payout (about £500,000 today) after the transport secretary Stephen Byers announced his resignation when he hadn't actually resigned. And then there was David Kelly, the government scientist whose identity was confirmed by the Ministry of Defence after a BBC report about "sexed up" Iraq intelligence. After a gruelling committee appearance where an MP accused him of being "chaff" and a "fall guy," Kelly killed himself two days later. Former committee chair Donald Anderson noted the MP had "chaff" on the brain from a recent Iraq trip - "It wasn't meant to demean David Kelly" - but the damage was done.
Ivan Rogers, who quit as UK's EU ambassador after his Brexit transition warning was leaked, says Starmer's eagerness to toss Robbins off a cliff should worry anyone who believes in an impartial civil service. The trend started with Blair wanting "true believers," Rogers argues, and Brexit put a bunsen burner under the politicisation. Philip Rutnam, the former Home Office permanent secretary who sued the government after being made the "target of a vicious and orchestrated campaign" by Priti Patel's aides, points to the media cycle as the culprit: "All of this mess could have been avoided in the Robbins case if only the original concern had been properly handled by No 10. Instead there was spiral after spiral - good for the media, but bad for everyone else involved."