Somewhere in the vast array of documents the Cabinet Office has gathered on the appointment of Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador in Washington, there is a text message which Keir Starmer sent the night before he made the announcement. ‘You’ll be brilliant in challenging circumstances,’ he told Mandelson. ‘And after many years of our discussions, we get to work together side by side. I really look forward to that.’

The message was leaked after one of Starmer’s most difficult weeks in charge, a week which senior civil servants believe proves, once and for all, that the Prime Minister himself will never be brilliant in challenging circumstances. His ‘vindictive’ decision to sack Sir Oliver Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, over the handling of Mandelson’s vetting may have terminally damaged the relationship between ministers and the senior civil service.

Those familiar with the cache of documents being prepared fear the most embarrassing will never see the light of day, like the one in which Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Prime Minister, sent Mandelson what is described as a ‘warm’ missive on the day he was sacked.

‘I hope this will finally kill the absurd “Keir Starmer is a decent man” narrative. He’s a shitweasel’ 

‘I hope this will finally kill the absurd “Keir Starmer is a decent man” narrative. He’s a shitweasel’ 

Starmer is the only former permanent secretary (a post he held as director of public prosecutions) to go on to be prime minister, but his apparent incomprehension of the very process he advocates has led officials to conclude he is no better than the predecessor he most deplores – Boris Johnson.

A former official says: ‘Senior leaders who have been there under several prime ministers say it is worse than it was, even under the worst of Boris. People are furious at how the Prime Minister has treated Olly.’

Another Westminster veteran says: ‘I hope this will finally kill the absurd “Keir Starmer is a decent man” narrative. He’s a shitweasel whose sole political talent is blaming others for his own failings.’

In 22 months, the PM is now on his third chief of staff, third cabinet secretary and fifth director of communications. ‘The body count outstrips anyone since Thatcher,’ a former official notes. ‘Boris talked a lot about firing people but he was all mouth and no trousers.’ Even Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s former chief of staff, who carried the can for the appointment, told a friend recently: ‘I always knew Keir would throw me overboard in the end.’

The irony is that Starmer did not initially back Mandelson. He wanted George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor. The Propriety and Ethics Team (PET) in the Cabinet Office were asked to do due diligence on the candidates. ‘At that point Osborne was his preferred candidate,’ an official says. ‘He had no intention of picking Mandelson until Morgan [McSweeney] made that happen. In his darkest moments the PM must be sitting going: “How am I in this mess over somebody I didn’t even want?”’

PET’s due diligence raised the issue of Mandelson’s closeness to the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Starmer and McSweeney swept aside these concerns. Simon Case, then the cabinet secretary, said that Mandelson should not be appointed until he had been formally vetted. This was ignored too. Then the Cabinet Office said there was no need for vetting at all, a decision Philip Barton, the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office before Robbins, fought against tooth and nail, while Starmer’s private office put him under colossal pressure.

Keir Starmer is prosecuting a relentless campaign against reality

Did Keir Starmer watch the same Olly Robbins as me?

The changing economics of war

McSweeney has denied phoning Barton and demanding: ‘Just fucking approve him.’ But friends of McSweeney do not deny that he was encouraging the Foreign Office to ‘get on with it’. It is understood that the row contributed to Barton’s decision to leave his position in January last year. (Payoff: £260,000.) ‘Philip had had........

© The Spectator