Quite right!: Starmer didn’t even want Mandelson – so why appoint him?
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The Spectator
4.3 • 826 Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
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Summary
For more from Michael and Maddie, search 'Quite right!' wherever you are listening to this podcast and hit the follow button to never miss an episode.
This week: the Mandelson row deepens – and a bigger question about Keir Starmer’s judgment and authority.
After a bruising appearance from Olly Robbins at the Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael and Madeline ask whether the Prime Minister’s defence still holds and assess the weaknesses this whole debacle has exposed in Keir Starmer. For example, why did he want Mandelson to be US Ambassador in the first place, given the numerous red flags and the fact that – as Michael suggests – he doesn’t particularly like Mandelson or his style of operating?
They also discuss whether this will end up being a resigning issue – and, if Starmer does go, what comes next? With potential successors circling and the local elections looming, would removing him would solve the problem or make it worse?
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | How do you make sense of this turbulent world? How do you stay informed, amused and entertained at a time of turbulence? |
| 0:07.2 | Well, by subscribing to the spectator. We have the finest writers in the English-speaking world |
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| 0:31.6 | Hello and welcome to the Spectators broadcast Quite Right. I'm Michael Gove, editor of The Spectator, |
| 0:40.4 | and this week the whole podcast is devoted to the drama surrounding the future of Keistama |
| 0:47.2 | after the way in which he handled Peter Mandelson's appointment blew up in his face and in particular the manner by which |
| 0:56.3 | Olly Robbins, the martyed Mandarin, took his revenge. |
| 1:02.6 | This week has been overshadowed by the continuing row over Peter Mandelson and how on earth he was appointed as our ambassador to Washington. |
| 1:14.5 | And we're recording on Tuesday, which was the day that Olly Robbins, the former head of the |
| 1:21.1 | Foreign Office, appeared before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in the House of Commons. |
| 1:24.4 | Ollie Robbins, of course, was sacked last week because Kierstaba and the |
| 1:29.3 | current Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, felt that he should have been more forthcoming about the |
| 1:35.0 | vetting procedures that accompanied Peter Mandelson's appointment. |
| 1:39.4 | Odie Robbins gave his account of why he acted as he did to a group of MPs. And then in the afternoon, |
| 1:47.0 | we've had a debate in the floor of the House of Commons with Kenny Badenough leading for |
| 1:51.2 | the prosecution against the government. And Maddie, you've been watching both. |
| 1:56.0 | What did you take away from, first of all, the Olli Robbins appearance? The Prime Minister |
| 2:02.1 | might have been thinking that things couldn't really have gone worse for him than they did |
| 2:05.8 | at the debate yesterday, but actually in some ways today was potentially even more damaging |
| 2:10.7 | for him. Olly Robbins, I think, acquitted himself extremely well. One couldn't help but notice |
| 2:16.3 | the contrast, for example, when he said at the |
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