To the shock of nobody, Rishi Sunak’s government has once again investigated itself and found it did nothing wrong. Liam Fitzpatrick laments the lack of accountability in Sunak’s government and of Speedy Suella Braverman.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman will face no further action after the PM declined to refer her to his “Independent” advisor Laurie Magnus for an inquiry into claims she attempted to abuse her position by getting the civil service to arrange a private speeding course.
Braverman has long struggled with integrity and transparency, as early as her days as a student politician, being caught up in a vote-rigging scandal to become Cambridge University Conservative Association chair. Her response to these allegations? ‘Nothing can be proved’. Right.
Braverman is essentially bulletproof, such is the power she wields among the Conservative right, and Sunak is too weak to kick her out of the tent.
It is a genuinely sad and pathetic state of affairs that Speedy Suella remains in post. What does it say about our government when a Prime Minister is too weak to sack a blatantly rule-breaking Minister?
In the days where there was at least a veneer of competence or accountability, a breach of the ministerial code would be a slam dunk sackable offence, with politicians honourably falling on their own sword and tendering their resignation. Now a breach of the code is met with a barely perceptible shrug.
Braverman is hardly a great asset to the country, a maverick striker whose off-pitch antics can be ignored because of the goals they bring.
Not only is she corrupt, but she’s also shit at her job. In a year at the Home Office (with a bizarre six-day spell on the sidelines for a previous breach of the code) all she has done is speak of her ‘dream’ to see migrants shipped off to Rwanda, been photographed laughing maniacally at a detention centre, and gone on a bizarre rant about Britain’s biggest problem: the, er, “Guardian reading, tofu eating, wokerati”.
In Sunak’s Government of “integrity, professionalism and accountability”, there remains a rule-breaker, allowed to roam the Cabinet room because her boss is too scared to sack her for fear she’ll come for his job next.
Make this wild ride stop.