QUENTIN LETTS: Seeing our PM being savaged by the pooh-bahs of Whitehall was so delicious – but boy did it expose them as jargon-spouting backside coverers

Whitehall is no Las Vegas, but recent events at the top of our public service bring to mind the day in 2003 when animal trainers Siegfried and Roy had trouble with one of their big cats. Mantacore, the 28-stone white tiger, was on stage with the campy duo at the Mirage venue when he decided he could no longer stand his masters in shiny suits. In front of stunned spectators, the tiger locked its jaws around Roy’s neck, puncturing his jugular vein and dragging him into the wings to gnaw further.

Roy somehow survived the incident, but he was never the same. The show is closed. What about Mantacore? Oh, okay. He lived to be 17 years old before peacefully raising his claws at the Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden animal sanctuary.

Even though the episode was bloody, it was hard not to sympathize with Mantacore. Siegfried and Roy were prize-winning vagabonds. This could happen to any Nevada artist who claims to have tamed a tiger. Who could blame Mantacore for trying to bite that pesky head off his shoulders?

Likewise, who do you support in Sir Keir Starmer’s case against tangerines? Again, one’s loyalties can be divided. Sir Keir, like Siegfried and Roy, blithely assumed that he was safe from attack.

He fed catnip to high-ranking officials for years. Won’t they show him the respect – the love – that is due to him as a pro-European and big-statist, a fan of risk assessments, public sector pay rises and international law?

Unfortunately, civil servants are slaves of their genes. They can look cute for years. Then the purring gives way to prey drive and our tangerine trainer starts counting with a single paw movement.

The last few days have been fun for rights holders. It was delicious to see that A-list Starmer get attacked by the Whitehall pooh-bahs. And how they attacked him, meow, meow!

There is an unofficial union of former Cabinet secretaries (the most senior post in the civil service) and naturally most of them are now lords. Last Monday, when a squirming Sir Keir made a statement in parliament about the Mandelson affair, the House of Commons peer gallery was full of those old Sir Humphrys.

The old magnates looked angrily and began to boast. This situation continued on the radio waves. Former Whitehall elders Lord Sedwill and Lord McDonald (a slim-hipped storyteller who helped bring down Boris Johnson) have called for Sir Olly Robbins to be reinstated as permanent secretary of the Foreign Office. The Institute of Government, a major silo of Blob-ism, has said little otherwise.

Sir Olly, 51, is the tragic idiot who was sacked after he neglected to tell the Prime Minister that official veterans displayed screaming abdabs when conducting a background check on Peter Mandelson.

A fragile Sir Keir had a paddy field on his hands when he learned of this omission. It was ‘unacceptable’ that he was not told of such security concerns regarding the selection of US ambassador. Exit Sir Olly being pursued by the employment lawyer.

The same Sir Olly Robbins was once Theresa May’s chief EU exit negotiator and was seen by Eurosceptics at the time as an obstacle to a faster, cleaner Brexit. In the bad days of the May government, Sir Keir was hot, hot, hot for Sir Olly. Now he had dismissed him.

On Tuesday, a slightly bug-eyed Sir Olly appeared at the House of Commons’ foreign affairs select committee. He experienced the pain of losing his job, which he had clinched after 24 years of hard work. He talked about the pressures on his ‘wonderful family’. It was her birthday the other day, boo-hoo. We all turned our gaze to the ceiling to compose ourselves.

Only the movement of the coldest dog (Ser Keir, for example) could fail. Sir Olly duly received a sympathetic press.

Later that day, during a debate instigated by the fiery Kemi Badenoch, the Conservatives rose in the House of Commons to defend Sir Olly against our tyrannical prime minister. Sir Keir’s former private secretary, Morgan McSweeney, was also said to have cursed Sir Olly’s predecessor, Sir Philip Barton. Sir Philip will give evidence to MPs in person on Tuesday. Having seen the old boy on previous committees, I advise you to prepare yourself for a flood of boredom.

As sweet as this whole mess was, were Sir Olly and the Foreign Office really faultless? Didn’t No 10’s move to appoint Mandelson make it more vital for Sir Keir to know quickly of any risks to national security?

Mandelson, who was sacked as US ambassador over his long-standing ties to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, also received £75,000 in damages

Was Sir Olly trying to be a yes man by giving Mandy his own blessing against review recommendations to help Number 10? Did he think this might help him become Cabinet secretary one day? Right-wing politicians should not get caught up in this scandal.

Yes, it shows Sir Keir in an unattractive light and he may now have to leave the scene. But it also revealed the inertia and dullness of Whitehall.

On Thursday, the utility’s chief operating officer, Cat Little, made her own turn before lawmakers. He was terrifying: a passive-aggressive automaton, a man spewing technocratic negativity, a gold-medal tailback whose sharp eyes and deadpan pauses showed why the British state had achieved so little.

We have seen a world where nothing is easy, everything has to be triple-checked, every cough and splutter is taken for minutes (until truly dangerous decisions, minutes mysteriously disappear), departments block each other, decisions are delayed and, understandably enough, political consultants start shouting at these mucilage merchants.

Nigel Farage has asked his colleague Danny Kruger to plan an overhaul of Whitehall. If Reformation enters government, what hope can lonely Mr. Kruger have against the battalions of Robbinses, Littles and Bartons?

While in power, the Conservatives often complained that they were being defeated by the Blob.

In short, the only man who managed to beat them was Dominic Cummings, himself a complex character. They soon did it for him.

Former members of the Coalition and Cameron governments recall what a frustrating time ministers such as Sir Robert Devereux of Work and Pensions, Dame Helen Ghosh of the Home Office and Martin Donnelly of Enterprise and International Trade had with the mandarins.

Britain’s top diplomat Olly Robbins has been effectively sacked after the ‘furious’ Prime Minister claimed he was not told Peter Mandelson had failed a security clearance.

Last week, Philip Rycroft, the civil servant once tasked with leading our exit from the EU, introduced himself as a Rejoiner. If Sir Olly Robbins were reinstated, it would become even more difficult for ministers to impose democratic will on such sticky civil servants.

Whitehall has become a place that likes to say no. He sees the bureaucratic process as a professional goal in itself. And it pays.

Three new Knights of the Garter were announced last week. These included former Cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell, who has become an almost uneven opponent of the Leave vote and has of course stood on his hind legs in recent days to condemn Downing Street’s treatment of Sir Olly.

Gus Bloomin’ O’Donnell Knight of the Garter! This is the equivalent of the tangerine’s retirement in Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden.