It’s a love-in at the home affairs committee as Yvette Cooper runs down the clock

Yvette was more than happy to indulge the select committee in its saccharine agenda. Why stop when you’re winning? Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images

What goes around doesn’t always come around. When Yvette Cooper was chair of the home affairs select committee between 2016 and 2021, she was a force of nature. Tireless. Persistent. Forensic. A one-woman opposition party that the government took seriously.

Yvette pretty much did for Amber Rudd – or rather, helped Rudd to do with herself – as home secretary. Sajid Javid was lucky to escape with a score draw in his appearances before her. Priti Patel merely had confirmed what we all knew: that she was one of the worst home secretaries in living memory.