Today is just the start of what promises to be an intensely disagreeable week for the Prime Minister. The past returns to haunt him in his appearance today at the Covid Inquiry, where he will be obliged to justify his controversial Eat Out to Help Out programme. It transpired that one thing it helped out was the spread of coronavirus. But the present is no more inviting as two separate Tory factions deliberate whether to support the second reading of his Safety of Rwanda Bill. Trouble is, the European Research Group and the One Nation Group have very different outlooks and aspirations. This is not a united party.
However, it may be that some of those factions will keep their reservations to themselves until the Bill’s final reading; the 29 Tory rebels needed to thwart it may think again. And indeed from a merely pragmatic point of view the only effect of a defeat for the Bill would be to confirm to a jaded public that the Tories have a death wish. Labour is, of course, getting off lightly here. It is opposing the Bill without proposing any concrete measures itself to reduce the numbers crossing in small boats. Its easy prescriptions for cracking down on people smugglers and similar have already been tried.
