Last night Sky News held a teachers’ strike Q&A with a “handpicked panel of experts” to discuss what the latest strike action means for teachers, staff, and students. One of these experts was primary school headteacher John Hayes, whose “expertise” was again reaffirmed at the end of the programme, just for good measure. John didn’t have much good to say about the government over the hour he was on-screen…

“…I would argue that the current government is the biggest disaster for children’s education right now. We have been campaigning on this well before the pandemic. We shouldn’t be in this place. State education is right on the edge, and it’s that way because of the current government and the decisions they have taken.”

Of course, what Sky forgot to mention in their glowing introduction is John also spends his time as the Chair of Hitchin Labour Party Branch… and even stood to be Hitchin and Harpenden’s Labour candidate in the 2017 election. Important context, Guido would have thought. Somehow it slipped the producers’ minds…

The relatively new “Common Sense” group of Tory MPs had a joint reception with Esther McVey’s Blue Collar Conservative group at conference last night, in a room so small, hot and cramped that if attendees didn’t have Covid beforehand they almost certainly will now. Partygoers were treated to a panoply of speeches, from the Common Sense chair and vice-chair Sir John Hayes and Tom Hunt, Express Editor Gary Jones, Attorney General Suella Braverman and Esther McVey herself. Thankfully Guido had positioned himself by the bar before the procession of common sense champions began their speaking relay race…

Among the usual no-nonsense, common-sense platitudes, Esther pricked the room’s ears when name-dropping a recent meeting she’d had with the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove. She claims the ex-spook said he was “shocked” how easily in the last 18 months we gave up our freedom.

“He said he was shocked, and he lived behind the iron curtain in the cold war and he said they had not given up the freedoms that we had given up. So we must fight to get our party back on track”

McVey didn’t reveal the original reason for her meeting with Sir Richard – discussing the possibility of the first female Bond Guido wonders?

The lesser-known “Common Sense Group” of Tory MPs led by Sir John Hayes – set up in wake of last year’s Black Lives Matter protests to “champion cultural conservatism” – has begun an ERG-inspired relaunch, beginning with the hiring of a new parliamentary assistant/adviser for the group’s “strategy and policy”. It has some of the old Cornerstone Group (“flag, faith and family”) in it – though we haven’t heard from that group for years…

Last November it was reported the group was 59 MPs and seven Lords-strong, and there’s now some talk of the membership list going public at some point. While the job advert says the group’s researcher will be responsible for “Writing letters, briefings and articles for group members,” Guido hears the position’s been floated for many months now. Will the group finally get organised enough to hold Boris’s feet to the culture war fire?