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Sir Keir Starmer tried to explain himself to parliament after Sir Olly Robbins was sacked as permanent under-secretary of state at the Foreign Office, its chief civil servant. Sir Keir complained that as Prime Minister he had not been told that Lord Mandelson had failed to satisfy UK Security Vetting when he took up his post as ambassador to Washington. Sir Keir said that he had not been told before 14 April. In the Commons he said: ‘I did not mislead the House.’ Even before Lord Mandelson’s appointment, the Cabinet Office had compiled a due diligence report, given to the Prime Minister, which cited concerns about the peer’s ties to China and Russia. Zarah Sultana, the Your Party MP, had to leave the Commons chamber after saying: ‘The Prime Minister is a bare-faced liar.’ Lee Anderson, the Reform MP, also had to leave for using the word lying. Sir Olly gave a different account the next day to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, saying that Downing Street took a ‘dismissive attitude’ to the vetting of Lord Mandelson and exerted ‘constant pressure’ to have him given security clearance. Sir Olly did not see the UK Security Vetting documentation but was told that Lord Mandelson’s case was ‘borderline’. He said that the concerns of UK Security Vetting did not relate to Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Having considered possible mitigations, Sir Olly decided to give Lord Mandelson clearance. He said it was right not to have told ministers the vetting team’s recommendation. Sir Olly also said that No. 10 discussed with him ‘potentially’ finding Matthew Doyle an ambassadorial role; Lord Doyle has since been suspended from the Labour party in a separate scandal.

Attacks on Jews are ‘gathering momentum’, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi, said after an arson attack at a synagogue in Kenton, Middlesex, the third in a week; a 17-year-old boy pleaded guilty to arson not endangering life. Police arrested seven people over a different alleged plan to commit arson against the Jewish community. Lord Skidelsky, the biographer of John Maynard Keynes and Oswald Mosley, died aged 86. Desmond Morris, the zoologist who wrote The Naked Ape (1967), died aged 98. Andy Kershaw, the radio presenter of world music, died aged 66.

Inflation rose to 3.3 per cent from 3 per cent. Unemployment fell to 4.9 per cent from 5.2 per cent. London Underground drivers went on strike. On one day 602 migrants crossed the Channel on small boats. A ban on smartphones in schools in England would be tabled in a government amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Abroad

Abbas Araghchi, the Foreign Minister of Iran, announced on X that the Strait of Hormuz was ‘completely open’. But when President Donald Trump persisted in blockading Iranian ports, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it was closing the strait again. A tanker and a container ship were fired upon by Iran. The US navy intercepted and seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship attempting to break its blockade. Mr Trump said that the ceasefire with Iran would continue, but so would the American blockade. About 1,600 ships were trapped in the Persian Gulf. Lebanon and Israel began a ten-day ceasefire. A picture of an Israeli soldier in southern Lebanon hitting a statue of Christ on the cross with a sledgehammer was widely seen online: ‘I was stunned and saddened,’ said Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel.

In the eighth general election in five years, the Progressive Bulgaria party won a landslide, the first time a single party has secured enough seats to govern alone since 1997; it is led by Rumen Radev, a Eurosceptic opposed to military support for Ukraine against Moscow. Alan Osmond of the American band of brothers died aged 76. A man shot dead seven of his children and a cousin, aged between 3 and 11 years, at Shreveport, Louisiana; police shot dead the suspected man. At least 25 people were killed in an explosion at the Vanaja Fireworks factory at Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu, India.

Ugandan soldiers, working with their Congolese counterparts, said they had rescued 200 civilians held captive in the Democratic Republic of Congo by Allied Democratic Forces, an armed group linked to the Islamic State. Japan warned of the risk of another huge earthquake after one of 7.7 magnitude struck off the north-east coast. Seres, the Chinese carmaker, was granted a patent for an ‘in-vehicle toilet’ that slides under a passenger’s seat while on the road.            CSH