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Stuttering Sir Keir Starmer was shoved ever closer to the precipice yesterday as the depths of this third rate government's deception was exposed.

Sacked civil servant Sir Olly Robbins - a man of probity and honour - has surely done for the prime minister.

He's loaded a gun that will be pointed at the PM's head and fired sooner rather than later. First in line will be Tory leader Kemi Badenoch at today's Prime Minister's Questions.

Yesterday Sir Olly said No 10 had a "dismissive" attitude to shady Peter Mandelson's vetting AFTER his appointment as UK ambassador to Washington.

The softly spoken straight said: "There was already a strong expectation coming from No 10 he needed to be in post in America very quickly."

Essentially, he was saying, they wanted the deal delivered at pace and to hell with due diligence (and the consequences).

Mandelson, well known as a human oil slick and a political liability, failed security vetting. In teacher's terms his paperwork was scrawled with red pen.

That, given his relationship with paedophile pal Jeffrey Epstein, might not come as a surprise.

But it might strike some as odd that his appointment was waved through regardless.

It is perhaps the most astonishing example of cart being put before horse.

Worse, it has exposed Labour's frivolous attitude to national security.

And it has shown the prime minister for what he is: a man without principle, a man without a backbone, and a man who is out of time.

On Monday cowardly Sir Keir claimed he had been deliberately kept in the dark over Mandelson's vetting. He sacked Sir Olly as a result.

But Sir Olly - who took up his post as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office after Mandelson's appointment was announced, but before he was formally confirmed in post, described an "atmosphere of pressure". In short, he was being lent on.

Basically, he suggested, a man to whom scandal attaches like fuzzy material to velcro was packed off to Washington with a nod and a wink, no questions asked.

And that is a trait that has become the hallmark of this disastrous government which has failed Britain in every conceivable way.

Fall guy Sir Olly was sacked after being blamed for failing to tell Sir Keir vetting officials had advised against giving Mandelson the plum diplomatic posting.

Revoking his appointment could, according to the mandarin, have caused irrevocable damage to US relations and a political storm from which the Government would have been left red faced. Which is funny, because that's exactly what has happened.

The situation is now clear: the mission was to get Mandelson to Washington, whatever it took.

But the fallout has exposed the failing of this government. When it is given advice, warnings, and recommendations, it ignores them.

In the case of Mandelson, it was due diligence, but it is true of so many other areas - scrapping winter fuel payments, taxing farms, digital ID, defence spending, welfare benefits, cancelling local elections and scrapping jury trials to name plenty for starters. The list is never ending.

It is quite clear we are being governed by clowns, unfit for high office.

At the heart of this very British scandal are three key players: hapless Sir Keir, potty-mouthed Labour strategist and former No 10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, and his mentor Mandelson.

McSweeney is said to have called Sir Olly's predecessor, Sir Philip Barton, demanding: "Just f***ing approve (Mandelson's appointment)" in an apparent hissy fit that the man he worshipped was being held back.

It also emerged that No 10 tried to get Sir Keir's spin doctor Matthew Doyle parachuted into a top diplomatic post abroad.

In the end he had to settle for a place in the Lords, but has since been stripped of the Labour whip over campaigning for a councillor who had been charged with child sex offences.

New Labour, same old mess.