Zia Yusuf – now back at Reform to head up its roving DOGE unit – has spoken to the Today Programme this morning. On which he repeatedly says Sarah Pochin is a “brilliant MP” after last week’s events…
Yusuf walked back on his tweet referring to Pochin’s PMQs question as “dumb” and said he was actually in favour of a burqa ban:
“It’d be good to actually clarify my view on that because I think there’s been a lot of misinformation out there about that. Look I think that if I was an MP which obviously I’m not I would think about it very deeply but I think I would probably would be in favour of banning face coverings in public – not just the burka but you know I’ve seen Antifa thugs threaten Nigel, threaten our employees and attack one of his security detail and knock a tooth out. It’s a very threatening thing and we do live in dangerous times.”
He went on to say he called the question dumb because “I thought probably at that moment the best thing to do would be ask a question about something that would be policy.” A rollercoaster…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”