I am sure that Conservative Members are all deeply grateful to us, which is why they have come to the Chamber to join the debate today.
We still do not know whether it was the Chief Whip or the Home Secretary who made so much of a mess of last week. In June, the Chief Whip said of the Home Secretary that she
“lacked intellectual firepower and quick wit”.
He said that “she has no friends”, and with amazing prescience, he said that
“she can’t even gain the support of her colleagues”.
That makes two of them, because the Chief Whip is on a roll. He nearly lost a vote—he came within 10 votes of doing so—last week. The man who is supposed to be working the bars of Westminster lost a vote on pubs this week. The man who is supposed to be holding the parliamentary Conservative party together has managed to mislay two MPs. When he was appointed, he said that his new job was
“to ensure the right people are in the right place”.
It is just a shame that they were in the wrong Lobby.