Lisa Nandy graced the Institute for Government conference this afternoon, only to be welcomed and endorsed by an audience member who openly admitted to being a serving senior civil servant. The audience member introduced herself as Grace Duffy, and told the Labour frontbencher “it’s so great to have you.”
“Hi, I’m Grace Duffy from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities! No it’s so great to have you. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about your views on how we address the problems in the housing market, particularly the role of the private renting sector. I was particularly struck by the comment you made about housing being a human right and how that relates to the view of not just the private renting sector but housing as either a financial product or as an investment; and how that relates to the human rights thing.
Also as someone who just moved out of London, just strong agree on the buses, it is such an enourmous source of frustration.”
Using her question to twice agree with her boss’s opponent seems like a pretty cut-and-dry incident of breaching the Civil Service Code, which requires the blob to “maintain political impartiality… no matter what your own political beliefs are.” It adds, “You must not: act in a way that is determined by party political considerations”. Grace Duffy is the Head of Private Rented Sector Dispute Resolution & Non-Traditional Tenures. She’s been a civil servant since 2014 – surely she should know better…
Tory MP Scott Benton made the Commons a bit rowdier this afternoon after launching a passionate tirade against Channel 4, in light of the government’s u-turn on selling it off. Rising to his feet the 2019 intake MP told Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan:
“Channel 4 has an unmistakeable liberal, left, metropolitan bias in its programming, and particularly in its news output. So much so it almost makes the BBC look impartial by comparison! How exactly is a few pages in its annual report going to change this engrained bias?”
His gag about the BBC got a hearty laugh from the Tory benches – and even a chuckle from the Secretary of State…
To say questions have been raised about Sky’s debate audience last night would be an understatement. Despite two polls this week giving Liz a 32-34 point lead over rival Rishi, the audience was incredibly hostile towards her, with Rishi coming out on top. Sky News has said the audience was made up of undecided members. Guido’s not sure they did their homework properly…
One very critical anti-Liz audience member has already been identified as Jill Andrew, a former CCHQ lawyer and party candidate who stood against Boris for his Henley seat in 2001. Hardly a typical member…
The jewel in Sky’s audience crowd, however, was undoubtedly Tom Harding, who went to town on Liz over her regional pay boards u-turn before almost starting a fight with a fellow audience member standing up for her. Harding, it transpires, is none other than Anna Soubry’s former chief of staff…
Among Tom’s work for Soubry included defending her defection from the party in 2019 and supporting her 2016 campaign for Remain. Tom also appeared on Question Time in June this year – he gets around – to announce that “The only reason I’m a member of the party now is to get rid of Boris Johnson”.
“The only reason I’m a member of the party now is to get rid of Boris Johnson”
— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) June 16, 2022
This #bbcqt audience member believes the Rwanda flights plan shows “incompetence” within government. pic.twitter.com/zh5suCDBDz
After a brief stint as a Tom Tugendhat fan, Soubry’s former chief bag carrier has swung in behind Rishi Sunak, a declaration he made publicly on July 20th, despite Sky claiming the audience was undecided.
Completely!!! If the party votes Truss then we deserve opposition. I’ll be using my vote for Rishi.
— Tom Harding (@TGHarding) July 20, 2022
This basic research isn’t difficult…
