Good morning. I cannot believe how often there is no choice but to email you about Suella Braverman, but here we are again.
Hot on the heels of an appearance at the National Conservatism conference that left Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson having to deny that the home secretary’s call for a cut to legal migration numbers was evidence of a rift, Downing Street is now facing a more ridiculous crisis of her making: the question of whether she broke the ministerial code by asking for special treatment after she was caught speeding.
Last night, the Guardian reported that the most senior civil servant in the Home Office was aware of the allegations, while the Times reported (£) that officials had emailed their concerns to the Cabinet Office’s ethics team. Now the question is whether Sunak will order an investigation.
The central weirdness of all this: for a while now, it has seemed that Sunak has been bending over backwards to keep Braverman in the cabinet, while the home secretary has appeared quite relaxed about the prospect of being fired – but not yet. Today’s newsletter, with the Guardian’s political editor, Pippa Crerar, is about why that is, and Braverman’s prospects for survival. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
NHS | Thousands of hospital staff are reporting claims of sexual assaults and harassment by patients, an investigation has found, prompting calls for ministers to address the “daily threat of abuse” faced by doctors and nurses. More than 20,000 alleged incidents were recorded in the five years to 2022.
Turkey | The nationalist candidate who came third in the first round of the Turkish presidential elections has formally endorsed Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with the runoff vote to be held on 28 May. Sinan Oğan, 55, emerged as a potential kingmaker after neither Erdoğan nor his rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu secured the necessary majority in the first round.
Madeleine McCann | An active search for Madeleine McCann is to be carried out for the first time in nearly a decade in a reservoir in Portugal. Police officers are to search Barragem do Arade reservoir near the town of Silves in the Algarve, about 25 miles (40km) from Praia da Luz where Madeleine disappeared in 2007.
Greece | Prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said he will push for a repeat poll “as soon as possible” after his centre-right New Democracy party fell five seats short of an outright majority. While New Democracy’s landslide victory was not enough to form a single-party government, a second vote would be held under a system granting the winning party as many as 50 bonus seats.
Donald Trump | Author and columnist E Jean Carroll is seeking “very substantial” additional damages from Donald Trump after he called her a “whack job” telling a “fake” story during a televised CNN town hall just a day after he was found liable for sexually assaulting her. Carroll is seeking an additional $10m in compensatory damages, and more in punitive damages.
In depth: ‘It suits Sunak to keep her if he can – she represents the rightwing of the party’
When Suella Braverman was attorney general, she was caught speeding in a 50mph zone. Like anybody else in the same position, she was given a choice: accept a fine and points on her licence, or attend a speed awareness course.
On its own, this would be insignificant, albeit entertaining in the light of claims that she asked if she could claim speeding tickets on expenses on her first day as an MP. The allegation against Braverman is that she then sought a course of action that would not have been available to anybody else. In stories published over the weekend, the Sunday Times (£) and Mail on Sunday claimed that she asked civil servants to help her arrange a one-to-one session in lieu of the ordinary group course.
When civil servants declined, a special adviser allegedly tried to work out other options that would avoid revealing her identity to other participants. Sources close to Braverman deny all this, and say that she was asking for advice about how to book the course, rather than telling civil servants to act on her behalf. In the end, Braverman paid the fine and took the points. For more detail, see Heather Stewart’s explainer from Sunday.
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So what?
Some observers view this as trivia: Simon Jenkins writes that stories like this are “how the system crowds out discussion of things that matter”.
Others say that it matters not because she sought a private session – which other prominent people have also tried, the publicity-shy lawyer known as Mr Loophole says – but because of the claim she denies that she directed civil servants to get involved in her personal affairs. The other issue is whether Braverman and her team were honest in their responses to journalists who asked about it. In other words: it’s trivial if Braverman’s version of events is correct, but it might not be if it isn’t.
“If she asked for advice, as her spokesperson said, that might be poor judgment, but it’s not a breach of the ministerial code, or it’s a minor one,” Pippa Crerar said. “If she directed civil servants to arrange a private course, that’s potentially more serious. You’re not allowed to ask civil servants to help with your private affairs. And there are claims that journalists were told she hadn’t even committed a speeding offence. If that’s true, then as always, it can be the cover-up that gets you.”
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Why has it come out now?
One claim to have done the rounds since Sunday is the idea that Braverman is the victim of a “smear campaign” because of her stance on migration. Miriam Cates, an ally on the Tory backbenches, told the Daily Telegraph: “It is no coincidence that it’s in the same week that she had been very vocal about the need to put proper limits on legal migration.”
But there are two big problems with that theory. One is that … it does, in fact, appear to have been coincidence. We know this because the Daily Mirror reports that it put the suggestion Braverman had been caught speeding to her special adviser six weeks ago – when even that part of the story was denied.
You might still say that even if Braverman’s speech last week was not the trigger, the leak could still be the result of disquiet at her general conduct as a minister. But that would have more weight if Braverman could show clearly that the claim that she inappropriately asked civil servants to intervene was unfair: instead, Cates and other supporters have little to say about the rights and wrongs of the underlying allegation.
“We have seen, for weeks, the narrative from Braverman blaming ‘the blob’ of civil servants for frustrating government,” Pippa said. “The claim that this has been a response to events of the last week forgets that this has been on the agenda for some time.” When considering that theory of the problems faced by Braverman and Dominic Raab, who had to resign over bullying allegations and yesterday announced he will stand down at the next election, we might also ask why other ministers of the same political stripe have not faced similar alleged conspiracies.
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What will Sunak do?
Initially, Downing Street said that the prime minister had spoken to his ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus and had been “availing himself of information” about the case. But there was no news on whether he would order an investigation by the end of the day.
While Braverman has been a regular source of headaches for Sunak since she was appointed as his home secretary only days after resigning as Liz Truss’s because she improperly shared official documents with a backbencher, “it suits Sunak to keep her there if he can”, Pippa said. “She represents the rightwing of the party, and the grassroots may align pretty closely with what she believes. And while the ‘one nation’ wing of the party like to claim Sunak as their own, he’s quite socially conservative.”
On the other hand, Sunak will face pressure to live up to his now-infamous promise of “integrity, professionalism and accountability”. (Peter Oborne examines his record in this piece.) And it is not clear that the parliamentary party will be pleased if he fights for her: she is well to the right of many of them, and there is frustration at what is seen as an appetite for self-serving publicity. In this piece, Pippa quotes one Tory MP who says: “Rishi needs to make it clear to her that she is either a team player or a backbencher.”
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How has Braverman reacted?
Braverman did speak about the issue yesterday – and said she was “confident that nothing untoward has happened”, but refused to specifically deny the allegations. Whatever the truth, it highlights one of the oddities of the home secretary’s approach to her role: she appears less committed to substantive outcomes than she is to persuading the party membership of her rightwing credentials.
Pippa said: “Some Tory MPs believe that while she is enjoying having a big, influential job, if it looks like they’re going to lose when we’re closer to an election, she might decide she’s better off in a position where she’s free to set out her own stall – and able to distance herself from a defeat – ahead of a possible leadership run.”
But it is probably too soon to be an optimal moment to leave the cabinet from that point of view – and this is hardly the subject she would choose to depart over, even if she seeks to paint it as the product of a conspiracy by “the blob”.
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What happens next?
If Sunak does ask Magnus to investigate, “they will try to do it very quickly – in a matter of days”, Pippa said. It will then be a question of whether there is hard evidence, potentially in the form of emails, that Braverman either deliberately misled the media or directed officials to act on her behalf over the speeding offence.
But even an adverse finding from Magnus might not mean curtains for Braverman. Think of the Dominic Raab case – where the minister quit, but only because he had pledged to do so rather than under any apparent directive from Downing Street.
“Under the rules as they now are, the prime minister doesn’t have a binary choice between keeping her and sacking her – there are other sanctions at his disposal, like demanding an apology, or docking a chunk of her salary,” Pippa said. And it is entirely possible that Magnus could find a breach at the lesser end of the scale, and one which Braverman could plausibly survive.
What else we’ve been reading
Postnatal depression is a condition that is primarily associated with women, but experts are now suggesting that men are just as susceptible to it. Ammar Kalia spoke to new fathers about their experiences and the hidden impact of male postnatal depression. Nimo
There’s a whole cultural genre of stories about the deranged behaviour of celebrity fans – but, Michael Bond argues, the evidence suggests that fandom in fact has a “remarkably positive influence on people’s lives”. He writes: “Most fans are on a search for meaning, and they are prepared to give a great deal of themselves to find it.” Archie
Anthony Broadwater spent 16 years in prison and two decades on a sex-offenders registry for a crime that he never committed. Alice Sebold spent all of her adult life reckoning with a rape that changed her perception of the world – only to find out the person she helped convict the wrong person. In the New Yorker (£), Rachel Aviv tells the harrowing story of these two people whose lives have been bound together by injustice and institutional failures. Nimo
I loved Arifa Akbar’s five star review of Ruth Wilson’s 24-hour performance of The Second Woman at the Young Vic. Arifa’s account of what it’s like to be part of an audience for that long, and the perils of a packed house for her hopes of stretching out and using her travel pillow, is compelling enough; Wilson’s many iterations of the same scene with different partners sound remarkable. Archie
Emine Saner’s decision to spend £2,000 on her pet guinea pig’s hysterectomy raised many eyebrows. Saner writes movingly about her unforgettable pet and why she doesn’t regret spending a penny on Ruby. Nimo
Sport
Premier League | Newcastle United sealed a place in the Champions League for the first time in 20 years with a 0-0 draw against Leicester. The result also means that Leicester must win against West Ham and hope Everton fail to beat Bournemouth in the final game of the season if they are to avoid relegation.
Women’s Champions League | The majority of Women’s Champions League matches will be shown behind a paywall next season, with the broadcaster Dazn believing the time is right to “accelerate the value” of the women’s game. Dazn had previously intended to stream all 61 games for free on its YouTube channel but will now reserve 42 of them for its subscription service.
Cycling | Mark Cavendish has announced he will retire from professional cycling at the end of the current season. The 38-year-old sprinter has 53 Grand Tour stage victories, a world title, and is still planning to compete at the Tour de France in July. William Fotheringham wrote that Cavendish “is almost unique for a sprinter, both in terms of longevity, and the depth and breadth of his results”.
The front pages
“Thousands of hospital staff report claims of sexual abuse by patients” is the Guardian’s splash today. The Times has “Green quango blamed for blocking new homes” – quango is a great and underused portmanteau, meaning “quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation”, and the quango in question is Natural England. “Police search reservoir for Madeleine” says the Daily Express, while the Sun calls developments in Portugal the “Riddle of the lake”. “Maddie cops search lake” says the Daily Mirror and “New hunt for Maddie” is the Metro’s headline – it refers to a “dig” taking place at the reservoir.
The Financial Times leads with “Meta handed record €1.2bn European fine over transatlantic data transfers”. “No 10 leaves Braverman waiting on her future” – that’s the i and the Daily Telegraph has “London ‘left behind’ by financial rival cities”. The top story in the Daily Mail is “Revealed: Plot to drive out equality chief who’s standing up for women”.
Today in Focus
From pollution to policing – can Sadiq Khan clean up London?
While training for the marathon, the London mayor developed adult-onset asthma – now he is on a mission to clean up the city’s air. But will his green policies win over voters?
Cartoon of the day | Steve Bell
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Every year between March and October, volunteers take part in BeeWalk, where they walk a designated route and count how many bees they see. The 800-strong group have created one of the largest bumblebee data sets in the world. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust monitors these numbers to prevent the decline of bumblebees as more than half of British species are growing scarcer.
Volunteer Sarah Hudson, who counts bees at Bunhill Fields cemetery in London, has become so immersed in conservation efforts that, during her retirement, she completed a masters in ecology specialising in the insects. “I’m still not an expert by any means. But they’re absolutely fascinating creatures, for something so small,” she said. “The things they can learn to do, because they are social animals. They are just amazing.”
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