Stuart Darkins

Thoughts are I own (I hope). Capable of terrible Dad jokes. Be Kind, be humble, be patient. 🤘

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

So I’m starting a thing today to raise money for St Elizabeth Hospice if you can give something that would go a long way to helping others
4miles Every 4 hours For 48 hours https://t.co/H48AjZvIPl

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@BritisherPaz49 I thought it was one of the hairy bikers at first glance 😂

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@camwright1405 🤞

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@Donna_Rachel_

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@RetroITFC If I remember correctly Pompy had been time waisting for much of the game. Thompsons goal was late in the game and felt deeply, deeply satisfying.

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@Ed_Miliband Ed, so Disingenuous….. we do not manufacture any of the solar panels or wind turbines in this country. Therefore this plan does not make us energy independent. It makes us totally reliant on the one country where the parts are manufactured.

[Mike Gardner @mikegardner_wb]

BREAKING NEWS

“Furious” Starmer was not told local elections had taken place yesterday.

The PM claims civil servants kept him in the dark until this morning.

He has ordered an enquiry into why the elections had gone ahead without his knowledge.

“I thought we’d cancelled them” he told Sky News.

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

🚜💙💙💙 #itfc

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

Today at PMQs, Keir Starmer selectively quoted Olly Robbins’ evidence at the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

Starmer said on Mandelson’s vetting: "no pressure existed whatsoever in relation to this case".

But Robbins’ own written evidence to the Committee talks of an “atmosphere of pressure" from No10.

On Monday, Robbins told the Committee: "Throughout January, honestly, my office and the Foreign Secretary’s office were under constant pressure. There was an atmosphere of constant chasing".

Starmer was therefore wrong to say that "no pressure existed whatsoever".

He must correct the record immediately.

[Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 @JChimirie66677]

The Man Nobody Is Talking About. His Name Is Sir Philip Barton.

Buried inside Tuesday's committee testimony, beneath the headlines about constant pressure, bullying and secret job searches, is the detail that may prove the most consequential of this entire affair. It concerns not Olly Robbins, not Morgan McSweeney, not even Keir Starmer. It concerns the man who was there before all of them. The man who said no. The man who then left his post eight months early.

Sir Philip Barton was the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office when Peter Mandelson's appointment was announced in December 2024. He was, in other words, the most senior civil servant in the building at the precise moment the machinery of state was being directed to place a man with documented links to Russia and China into the most sensitive diplomatic posting in the Western alliance.

What Robbins told the committee on Tuesday is this. Barton pushed back. When the Cabinet Office argued that vetting Mandelson was unnecessary, that a peer and Privy Councillor did not require developed vetting, Barton refused to accept it. He insisted that vetting was a requirement. He had to be, in Robbins's own words, very firm in person. He also voiced reservations about the appointment to Jonathan Powell, the National Security Adviser, reservations that were noted and not acted upon. He was worried, Robbins suggested, about exactly the same reputational risks that had been detailed to the Prime Minister before the appointment was announced.

Then Sir Philip Barton left his post. Eight months before his tenure would otherwise have concluded.

The question Richard Foord put to Robbins on Tuesday was the right one. Why did Barton's tenure end early? Robbins said he did not know. He suggested ministers may have felt it was time for a change. That answer is not an answer. It is the absence of one.

Consider what the timeline now shows. A senior civil servant pushes back against the appointment, insists on vetting when the Cabinet Office wants to bypass it, raises reservations with the National Security Adviser, and departs eight months ahead of schedule. His replacement arrives to find the appointment already treated as a fait accompli, the vetting process under constant pressure from Downing Street, and the question of outcome entirely subordinate to the question of speed.

If Barton was removed because he stood in the way of this appointment, then Robbins was not the first civil servant sacrificed to protect it. He was the second. And the question of who else was moved aside, overruled or silenced in the months between December 2024 and the moment the security services finally said no, becomes the most important question this affair has yet produced.

Starmer sacked Robbins for following the rules. The Foreign Affairs Committee will now call Barton to give evidence. What he says will either confirm what the timeline already suggests or provide an alternative explanation that the evidence does not currently support.

There is a pattern here that goes beyond process failure. Process failures are random. They point in different directions. What this affair has produced is a series of events that point consistently in one direction. Officials who comply are retained. Officials who push back depart. The security services are bypassed. The vetting is treated as an administrative inconvenience. And the one question nobody at the top of this government will answer is why this appointment, this man, this post, mattered so much that every obstacle was removed to make it happen.

Barton apparently asked that question. He left eight months early. The country deserves to know why.

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@ryan__ITFC @essextractor Essex”tractor” forgot to switch back to his Nodge account in frustration b4 posting this. 😂

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@NorwichCityFC 🧂🧂🧂🧂

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@SydesJokes @IpswichTownFans @IpswichTown Have u considered they didn’t invite them?

[Andrew Snowden MP 🇬🇧 @A_J_Snowden]

What is Starmer scared of? What is he hiding on Mandleson?

I’m sick of listening to Starmer’s pre-scripted drivel masquerading as answers at #PMQs

We know the answer to the question @KemiBadenoch asked him 6 times, he just doesn’t want to say it.

So I called him out for it.

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@ktlngfrd Save them for the league fixture next week. 🤞

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@prodnose @CACoates96 @prodnose we need another own goals and gaffs please 🙏 there must be rich pickings from the Championship and lower leagues to be harvested.

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@essextractor Us? Give it a rest mate

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@B19LFS They probably did quite well from the Omari Deal. So they have previously benefited from loaning players to Towen.
Seen fit to recruit talent directly from Ipswich. LR former town player so links with the club.
#itfc

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@ITFCOpinions He’s a young lad in a new country. Back him and he will come good.

[Stuart Darkins @drDarkins]

@ITFCOpinions His weight of pass is excellent. His quality isn’t In question IMHO. If we remember back to omari’s 1st season on loan he has had more game time already. O’Clutch kicked on in the 2nd half of that season. KMcK will coach him into an outstanding player.