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Watch: James Brokenshire taken to task over Roger Scruton sacking

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James Brokenshire has been keeping a low profile since the controversial sacking of Roger Scruton three weeks ago. But now the Housing Secretary has finally been taken to task for his handling of the row. Brokenshire sacked Scruton from his unpaid government role within hours of the publication of an interview in which Scruton was accused of making a ‘series of outrageous remarks’. As Douglas Murray details in this week’s magazine, the truth about what Scruton said was rather different.
On LBC, Brokenshire was asked by Iain Dale whether he regretted sacking Scruton:

‘It is just that regret I have. I have a huge amount of respect and acknowledgement for Sir Roger’s focus on aesthetics. He is a leader in his field.’

ID: Shouldn’t you have spoken to him at the time when you sacked him?

I think, with hindsight, I look back on the handling of this and, yes, we could have done things differently.

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