Downing Street considered making Sir Keir Starmer's former director of communications Lord Matthew Doyle an ambassador, the former top civil servant at the Foreign Office has said.Sir Olly Robbins said he "felt quite uncomfortable" about the suggestion and "kept giving advice that I thought this would be very hard for the office and was hard for me personally to defend".

Downing Street considered making Sir Keir Starmer's former director of communications Lord Matthew Doyle an ambassador, the former top civil servant at the Foreign Office has said.Sir Olly Robbins said he "felt quite uncomfortable" about the suggestion and "kept giving advice that I thought this would be very hard for the office and was hard for me personally to defend".