It’s a bad morning to be Nadhim Zahawi. On Question Time last night, his predecessor as Conservative Party Chairman, Jake Berry, publicly called for him to stand aside. After prefacing his comments with “I know Nadhim Zahawi very well, I’d consider him a friend”, Jake didn’t waste any time in throwing his mate under a bus:

“The government needs to find a mechanism for ministers and MPs who are under investigation in this way to step aside, to clear their name, and then to come back into government if that is appropriate. I think for Nadhim, great individual that he is, that would be the right thing to do now”

Berry insisted this was a long-term and consistent position, which he reinforced by confirming his view that Dominic Raab should also stand down. This just days after semi-detached-Tory Caroline Nokes publicly called for the same. With friends like these…

The morning papers would hardly have provided any relief for Zahawi. The Guardian splashes with calls for an inquiry into an unsecured £30 million loan for his wife’s company, whilst Bloomberg reports how Nadhim triggered a government security alert on a trip to Iraqi Kurdistan. This all comes as The Times details how the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser has been given access to the Zahawi’s complete tax settlement. Watch this space.

A cabal of left-wing MPs have, predictably, smelt blood and are going after Jeremy Clarkson. For anyone waking up from a four-day coma, Clarkson is under siege for writing a Sun column railing against Meghan Markle. One paragraph parodied a Game of Thrones scene:

“At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.”

Given Markle is the least popular member of the royal family bar Prince Andrew, Guido guesses many Brits may have been inclined to broadly agree with the sentiment of the piece. Instead the London-centric Twitter-sphere is apoplectic; getting the column taken down and forcing Clarkson into a sorry-not-sorry climbdown.

Oh dear. I’ve rather put my foot in it. In a column I wrote about Meghan, I made a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones and this has gone down badly with a great many people. I’m horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future.

— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) December 19, 2022

For some reason, lefty MPs feel that this important issue is today’s national priority. Rather than the strikes, the economy, war on our continent, or at the very least just logging off ahead of Christmas…

Tory-in-name-only MP Caroline Nokes has spearheaded a letter on behalf of those “hurt” by Jezza’s “#NotAnApology”, demanding he instead issue “an unreserved apology… to Ms Markle immediately”. 

“We further demand definitive action is taken to ensure no article like this is ever published again.”

The letter is signed by 64 MPs, mainly Labour and SNP. Guido notes that whichever of Nokes’s staff formatted the letter isn’t particularly savvy, given the top name of the second column is Clive Lewis. An MP whose primary contribution to feminism thus far was telling a woman to “get on your knees bitch”.

Guido’s no stranger to defending Clarkson in times of career trouble. The BBC, despite dismissing him for a fracas in 2015, often stood by him during rows about things he’d said or written.

Guido’s not so confident that the likes of Amazon – American distributors of his brilliant farming show – will have the same backbone this time around…

UPDATE: Meanwhile, the official letter from MPs accusing the Sun of editorial sloppiness includes signatories spelt as follows:

• Mary Kelly Fox [sic]
• Claudia Webb [sic]
• Hanna [sic] Bardell
• Andy Macdonald [sic]
• Alan [sic] Doran [sic]

Chapeau…

This afternoon, Caroline Nokes repeatedly grilled Boris over the government’s sexual harassment strategy –  just two days after she accused the PM’s father, Stanley Johnson, of groping her in 2003. In the excruciating exchange, Nokes pressed Boris over the possibility of “making public sexual harassment a specific crime“, and the efforts to increase rape prosecutions across the country. Not an easy watch…

For reasons not entirely clear to Guido, Fathers for Justice have sent Caroline Nokes, and other members of her Women and Equalities Committee, white feathers. They want her to support the establishment of a Men’s Committee and the appointment of a Minister for Men. On their ten-point wish list is making misandry a hate crime. Guido has already celebrated International Men’s Day… by taking out the bins.

With Parliament rebooting its functions, the crucial role of the Women and Equalities Select Committee during the international Coronavirus crisis cannot be understated. Appearing electronically before the panel this morning, Liz Truss gave a fiery performance, rejecting Chairman Caroline Nokes’ probing over a lack of gender diversity at the Government’s daily press briefings. Truss swatted back, saying “I don’t like tokenism, the idea someone should appear at a press conference or a media interview because they’re a woman”. Watch the exchange highlights above…