The government has been forced into an embarrassing u-turn over the Leadsom Amendment on standards after both the SNP and Labour declared they wouldn’t participate in the new committee voted through by Tory MPs yesterday. In the Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg has acknowledged that any reform needs to be cross-party and yesterday “conflated” the need for reform with the individual case of Owen Paterson. The government will now look again at what to do going forward. The word ‘farce’ comes to mind…