If Keir Starmer could have designed the news agenda for the two-week runway leading into the local elections, do you reckon he would have picked wall-to-wall Peter Mandelson? Alas, the erstwhile ambassador to America and “best pal” of Jeffrey Epstein is a problem that just won’t go away. When the prime minister would rather talk about, I dunno, literally anything else, instead all eyes are on whether he’s been entirely honest about the events leading up to Mandy’s posting to Washington.

On Monday, after it was made public that Mandelson had failed the vetting process, the prime minister went on the attack. He told the House that civil servants at the Foreign Office, of their own volition, overruled UK Security Vetting’s recommendation that Mandelson be denied clearance. This information had been withheld from ministers, leaving the PM swaddled in a state of ignorance about the true nature of the man once known as The Prince of Darkness.

And in case you were wondering, yes, it was all apparently the fault of Olly Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office who was ignominiously sacked last week. How was Starmer otherwise meant to know that Mandelson, a man whose friendship with Epstein was already in the public domain, might be a liability?

Twists followed turns. The very next day, Robbins appeared before the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and gave two-and-a-half hours of oral evidence. He confirmed that he didn’t tell ministers about the vetting concerns surrounding Mandelson. But, he was keen to stress, that’s not the real story. According to Robbins, there was immense pressure from Downing Street (*cough* Morgan McSweeney *cough*) to wave through the appointment of Mandelson to the ambassadorship. He claimed that Downing Street had queried whether vetting was even necessary, seeing as Mandelson was already in the House of Lords.

It’s easy to see how Robbins might have felt he was in an invidious position. Mandy’s new job had already been announced to the public, confirmed by the King, and accepted by Washington before vetting had taken place. Robbins could ignore the vetting recommendation, or abide by it – and thus be personally responsible for causing the prime minister immense embarrassment. It has since transpired that those were not mutually exclusive options.

Robbins’ testimony threatened to leave Starmer’s statement of the case in tatters. But, in case you forgot that Westminster politics is just Oxbridge Eastenders, there was yet another twist in store. Yesterday, Cabinet Office civil servant Cat Little appeared before the committee. She claimed that Robbins had refused to send her a summary of why Mandelson was initially refused vetting clearance. What’s more, Little cited emails which appeared to show that it was a Foreign Office team who contacted UKSV and the Cabinet Office to question whether, as a sitting peer, Mandelson needed full vetting. For Downing Street, Little’s testimony offers something of a reprieve. Once more, the prime minister’s team can present the Mandelson scandal as purely a Foreign Office fuck-up – the fault of the blob gone rogue, rather than bad political judgement.

Little’s audit trail might differ with some details offered by Robbins, but it doesn’t comprehensively kill his case. Robbins’ version of events (civil servants, afraid of conflict with Downing Street, made a call to spare the prime minister’s blushes) is still more plausible than Sir Keir’s (the security vetting was ignored because someone in the Foreign Office was possessed by a demon). And there’s more testimony to come.

Next week, McSweeney is scheduled to appear before the committee, and will have to address claims that he effectively bullied civil servants into rushing the appointment of Mandelson. He’ll have to answer whether or not it’s true that he told Sir Philip Barton, then-permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, to “just fucking approve” Mandelson’s posting. Barton too will offer his take to the committee – meaning that the scandal, and its implications for the prime minister’s integrity, shows no sign of abating.

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