He was later pushed on who had ordered him to look into getting Doyle a position, and who had ordered him not to tell the foreign secretary (which at the time was David Lammy).

Robbins said: “I don‘t know what the origin of the suggestion was, and I don‘t know who exactly was behind it or how serious it was.

“It was serious enough for the No 10 private office to ring up the head of the diplomatic service and ask for a forward look of available head of mission jobs, and that‘s the point at which I thought that I needed to lay down some markers.”