Welcome to this week’s Worst of Westminster. You can sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox every week for free here.
It's a week Rishi Sunak will surely be wiping his brow at the end of. The PM has faced the Covid Inquiry as well as a nervy vote over the new Rwanda Bill, narrowly dodging what many expected to be a significant rebellion from the right of his party.
And the week came to a close with a musical number, but we’ll get to that.
PM faces Covid Inquiry
Sunak kicked off the week with a much-anticipated appearance at the UK’s Covid-19 inquiry where he defended the Eat Out to Help Out scheme he brought in as chancellor in summer 2020.
It was his idea of a defibrillator to try and shock the economy back into life, but the inquiry has revealed top scientists were not consulted about it despite questions about whether it contributed to the spread of infection.
It provided 50% off the cost of food and/or non-alcoholic drinks.
Sunak maintained the initiative was the right call, suggesting many jobs would have been at risk had he not brought in the bumper discount but then-chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance previously told the inquiry the scheme was “highly likely” to have fuelled deaths.
Sunak said such concerns were not raised with him despite there being a one-month gap between it being announced and the scheme coming into effect.
He branded it a “micro policy” with the overall reopening plan after the first lockdown, with indoor hospitality already open again at the time.
Elsewhere during his hearing, he claimed it was unfair to describe the Treasury under his leadership as a “pro-death squad”, a term used by some No 10 officials to refer to the department being against some restrictions.
He added that Downing Street “felt fine” to him during the pandemic.
It’s safe to say this was much less fiery than the session with Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock with Sunak seemingly doing his bit and quietly letting himself out. Perhaps he had other things on his mind…
From The Godfather to panto
Two successive days rarely capture what’s wrong with our politics so well as this Tuesday and Wednesday.
First was Tuesday’s crunch vote on the new Rwanda Bill. Parliament was packed to see whether Rishi Sunak would fall into the trap he had laid for himself, but he managed to win the vote with a comfortable majority of 44.
People within the Conservative Party often refer to it as a family. Well this week they had five: the New Conservatives, the European Research Group, the Common Sense Group, No Turning Back (promise we’re not making these up) and the Northern Research Group.
Mark Francois, chair of the European Research Group who sees himself as the Don Corleone of south Essex, rolled around Parliament on Tuesday giving press conferences to any reporters who would listen.
It turned out to be so much sound and fury as the day wore on, with the Government passing the bill despite 29 Tory abstentions.
Sunak fought on to lose another day. He is walking a tightrope between making concessions on the Rwanda bill to appease the right while the sixth family of Tory MPs, the wets in the One Nation Conservatives, want it softened slightly.
If the political drama of Tuesday was the main course, the pantomime of Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday was the dessert.
Keir Starmer came out punching with a half-decent gag about the Conservatives’ internecine warfare the day before, asking Sunak: “Christmas is a time of peace on earth and goodwill to all – has anyone told the Tory party?”
Sunak replied with a gag of his own, remarking: “Christmas is also a time for families, and under the Conservatives we do have a record number of them”. This was met with excitable Labour MPs holding up five fingers as they heckled the PM.
Mordaunt’s B-side
The festivities did not end there. Some of you may have caught Glasgow Tory councillor John Daly performing his own anti-SNP version of the 12 Days of Christmas last week.
It began: “Twelve ‘it’s the Tories’, eleven 'blame Westminster’s’, ten 'underfundings', nine ‘not enough powers’, eight ‘it was Covid’, seven 'Boris Johnsons', six 'Cruella Bravermans', five 'Brexit things'!”
And so on and so forth…
Well it now seems the Tories have started their own battle for Christmas number one, as Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt brought her own version to the green benches during Business Questions.
After she was asked by her arch-enemy Deidre Brock whether the partners of British citizens currently living in the UK face deportation if they don’t earn over a certain amount, Mordaunt launched into a tirade about the SNP clearly inspired by Daly.
Without any credit given to her local government colleague, she said with the vaguest signs of rhythm: “12 hours of police questioning, 11 grand roaming charges, 10 years without school inspections, 9 sham embassies, 8 years of poor child mental health, 7 years without ferries, 6 years shirking welfare powers, £500 million overspent on Edinburgh’s tram!
“£4 million to install a heat pump, 3 high-profile arrests, 2 overseas jollies and a dodgy Jaguar EV.”
In The National newsroom, we felt Daly showed much more gusto in his performance and Mordaunt’s was very much the B-side.
