Labour suggests ‘gongs for cronies’ row is stopping Rishi Sunak doing his job properly as PM

Good morning. Rishi Sunak faces PMQs today. Among the many problems in his in-tray are another strike by junior doctors starting this morning, rising mortgage rates and Nick Macpherson, a former Treasury permanent secretary, warning that the election due next year could coincide with the economy going into recession.

But I can’t remember an election when 18 months out interest rates were still rising steeply. It’s still possible the government may get lucky: underlying inflation may come down quicker than expected. But I wouldn’t bet on that. 5/6

— Nick Macpherson (@nickmacpherson2) June 13, 2023

Much more likely that the Bank of England will raise rates to a level where a recession next year becomes inevitable. As a Chancellor said 34 years ago (albeit a year further out from an election) “if it isn’t hurting, it isn’t working”. #soundmoney 6/6

— Nick Macpherson (@nickmacpherson2) June 13, 2023

But, Westminster being Westminster, much of the focus at PMQs may end up being on what has been described as the Boris Johnson “clown show” (now on day six of its run). Here is Aubrey Allegretti’s overnight update on where we were on that last night.

There are at least four things we might learn in relation to this story today.

1) Will Sunak escalate his attack on Johnson? After studiously avoiding doing anything that might antagonise Johnson, his small band of loyal supporters in the party, and his much more powerful allies in the Tories media, for most of his premiership, Sunak did publicly criticise him on Monday. Will he double down on this, or retreat?

2) Will the Commons privileges committee publish its report today? Almost certainly not was the steer last night, but nothing in this saga has been certain.

3) Will the government move the writs for the two byelections pending today, in Johnson’s seat and Nigel Adams’, and when will they be?

4) Will Nadine Dorries, who said on Friday that she was standing down as an MP “with immediate effect”, get round to doing so? She hasn’t yet.

Interesting and entertaining as it is, the Johnson pantomime is ultimately quite trival compared to the fact that the UK’s economic performance is lacklustre, many workers are no better off in real terms than they were a decade or more ago, and important public services do not function properly. Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, was giving interviews this morning on the junior doctors’ strike, and he sought to link it with the Johnson shenanigans. He told the Today programme:

I think the reason junior doctors are out on strike is because they don’t have someone to negotiate with. I think the question at this stage, having failed to get to a negotiated settlement, is where’s the prime minister?

If he’s got an hour of his time to sit with Boris Johnson negotiating gongs for cronies and peerages in the House of Lords, he should have an hour at least to negotiate an end to these terrible strikes which are causing misery for the doctors involved and even more importantly misery for patients who are seeing their operations delayed and cancelled.

Technically, this is not a good argument; prime ministers can deal with more than one issue at a time, and Sunak has a lot more than an hour of his time on NHS pay issues. But that’s irrelevant, because voters will believe Streeting has a point when he says the Johnson row is a distraction.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.45am: Suella Braverman, the home secretary, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee.

11.30am: Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, gives a speech on AI and education.

12pm: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.

After 12.45pm: MPs begin a debate on an SNP motion calling for the creation of a Commons cost of living committee to investigate what is driving up prices, how Brexit has contributed, and what the government should do in response.

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Key events

Home Office has failed to provide proper evidence modern slavery protections being abused by migrants, committee chair tells Braverman

Johnson now moves on to the illegal migration bill. She says the equalities impact assessment said it would disproportionately impact women.

Q: If a woman who had been trafficked for sex purposes came to the attention of the authories, would she be detained under the illegal migration bill?

Braverman says 80% of people coming on small boats are men. So women are only a small proportion of small boat arrivals.

Q: But could someone be detained if they were a victim of modern slavery?

Braverman says the modern slavery protections have been abused. That is why the rules are being tightened.

Q: But would someone be subject to arrest and detention.

Braverman says it would depend on the circumstances.

Q: You are not sure.

Braverman says it is complicated. There are exemptions, which can allow women not to be detained. If people are part of a police investigation …

Q: Say they are not. Say a woman has just arrived, and is being used for sex trafficking. What happens to this woman?

Braverman says that would be an illegality. If they go to the police, or if they are part of a police investigation, they could claim an exemption to the removal powers in the bill.

But the government must ensure people cannot continue to game the rules, she says.

Johnson says the committee has asked for evidence that the system is being gamed. It has not received any.

Braverman says she gave the committee examples.

Q: Only two.

It was four, says Braverman.

Johnson concedes it was four.

Suella Braverman gives evidence to Commons home affairs committee

Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is giving evidence to the Commons home affairs committee. It is a session on “the work of the home secretary”, and so anything come come up. There is a live feed at the top of the blog.

Diana Johnson, the committee chair, starts by naming what she describes as a pimping website, and asks why it has not been banned.

Braverman says she has not heard of the website mentioned by Johnson. But she says pimping is a heinous practice.

Johnson says she looked at the website yesterday. There were 297 adverts for women in Hampsire, Braverman’s constituency. She said many used the same number. And adverts said women were “new in town”, or only there for a short period. These are all red flags for women being trafficked, she says. She says she reported this to the police.

Daniel Finkelstein, the Tory peer, has used his Times column today to argue that Rishi Sunak should double down on his criticism of Boris Johnson, to distance himself from his predecessor but one. Finkelstein argues:

While Boris Johnson is wittering on about a peerage for Nigel Adams to disguise the fact that he is being suspended from parliament for misleading it, he has done Sunak one favour. He has removed from the prime minister the obligation of pretending that he and Johnson are in harmony. There has long been warfare but now the warfare is open.

The costs of this are clear. It makes the Tories look like a rabble. Actually, delete the words “look like”. But the benefit is that Sunak is now able to say what he really thinks about his predecessor.

And such frankness would allow him to take advantage of one of his main strengths. He warned first Johnson and then Truss against a policy of reckless borrowing. He was prepared first to resign and then lose a leadership contest to assert a principle that has been entirely vindicated. He showed prescience and courage and was ultimately victorious.

Finkelstein also has a good take on how Johnson failed to obtain peerages for his allies.

What happened over the peerages is a little like Johnson’s negotiation over the Northern Ireland protocol. He failed to listen to the details, collapsed his position, imagined he had a deal on his own terms, reassured his allies that he had won a great negotiating triumph and then, discovering he had let his friends down, furiously refused to abide by any agreement at all, claiming it was the other side who had reneged.

Junior doctors who are on strike in England today on a BMA picklet line at University College London this morning. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

Streeting says Tory ‘clown show’ means Sunak can’t focus on issues of the day

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, also attacked the Tories over Boris Johnson in an interview with Times Radio. He said:

I think it does say something about the culture of the Conservative Party and the clown show that continues to roll on.

It is a total shambles. Rishi Sunak is too weak to lead it. Even if he is trying to focus on the issues of the day, he’s being dragged off with the clown show.

And I think it’s one of the many, many, many reasons why it’s time for a change of government, and only Labour can provide that change and the quality and stability of government that we need.