Olly Robbins ‘thrown under bus’ by No 10, says ex-Foreign Office chief – as it happened

This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here Sir Olly Robbins was “basically thrown under the bus” as a result of the “biggest diplomatic crisis” in over 40 years, according to Simon McDonald. Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday, Lord McDonald, an ex-permanent secretary in the Foreign Office, described Robbins as a “scalp” that the government needed after the Guardian revealed that Peter Mandelson had been appointed as ambassador to the US despite failing his vetting process. When asked if Robbins had been “basically thrown under the bus”, Lord McDonald replied: double quotation markYes. This story broke on Thursday morning in a piece in The Guardian – within the news cycle Olly Robbins had been required to resign. This shows to me that Number 10 wanted a scalp and they wanted it quickly and I cannot see that there was any process, any fairness, any giving him the chance to set out his case, and that feels to me wrong. McDonald also said that the fallout from Mandelson’s appointment had been “the biggest crisis in the diplomatic service” since he joined the Foriegn Office in 1982. We’re wrapping up our coverage of toda