Covid and partygate still haunt Sunak
Rishi Sunak will have wanted to use this week to sell his new Brexit deal. The ghosts of governments past had other ideas. Fresh evidence suggesting Boris Johnson might have misled parliament over partygate, and the embarrassing leak of Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages, have led to some uncomfortable questions. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton-Harris told Laura Kuenssberg he believed Johnson was an honest man:
Hancock messages suggest an ‘eat out to help out’ cover-up
Kuenssberg then asked Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth about the WhatsApp leaks, in which Hancock appears to say he attempted to keep evidence that the ‘eat out to help out’ scheme caused a rise in infections out of the news. Ashworth said it was crucial there was a full inquiry:
Where will asylum seekers go?
With Rishi Sunak announcing new laws that would prevent anyone arriving to the UK on small boats from seeking asylum, Laura Kuenssberg questioned the government’s tactics, showing Heaton-Harris a graph that showed a steady decline in the number of asylum seekers being returned since 2010 despite immigration laws being tightened. She asked him where the government planned to put those who would be turned away under the new rules:
‘When did the conversations begin?’
With the surprising news that senior civil servant Sue Gray had been recruited as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, some have asked whether it calls her impartiality in that role into question. Laura Kuenssberg asked Jonathan Ashworth whether conversations between Gray and Starmer could have contravened rules:
Michelle O’Neill – ‘We have huge economic potential’
And finally, with the DUP still deliberating whether or not to support the new Northern Ireland deal, Sinn Fein Vice President Michelle O’Neill spoke to Sophy Ridge, agreeing with Sunak that Northern Ireland was in a positive economic position, and urging the DUP to return to the Executive:
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