Suella Braverman had to resign as home secretary in October 2022 for “multiple breaches of the ministerial code” when she used her personal email to share an official document with a parliamentary colleague. Rishi Sunak reappointed her home secretary just six days later.
Then, in March 2023, Braverman was accused of breaching the ministerial code again after she made a direct attack on the impartiality of civil servants. Rishi Sunak took no action against her.
Home secretary Suella Braverman is now back in the news over reports that she may have broken the ministerial code by asking civil servants to give her special treatment following her conviction for speeding in the summer of 2022.
As home secretary, Braverman is responsible for enforcing the law in England and Wales.
Will Sunak finally stand up and take action against Braverman? Or will she be allowed to go, once more, unto the breach of the ministerial code?
Sasha Simic
London
Braverman exhibits a serious lack of judgment, and that’s putting it kindly
Suella Braverman has tried to involve civil servants in her attempt to avoid the embarrassment of a speed awareness course. This is not the first time the ministerial code has caused difficulties for her. And she still maintains that the plan to send immigrants to Rwanda will be the solution to the problem of people arriving on our shores in small boats. Perhaps the kindest thing that can be said about her is that she exhibits a serious lack of judgement.
The decision about whether she has breached the ministerial code is for the prime minister. Rishi Sunak is in the unfortunate position of trying to maintain his party’s coalition of probably decent people on the one hand and the far-right wrong ’uns on the other. In the unlikely event that they win the next election, his troubles may become even worse.
Perhaps the best option for him, and certainly for the rest of us, would be to sack his home secretary and call an early election. But I doubt if that will happen.
Susan Alexander
South Gloucestershire
The Conservative Party’s demise is to be welcomed
As impossible as I would find it to vote Conservative, if I were to be given another 50 years to add to those I have already had to exercise my franchise, the likely obliteration of the party – as clearly analysed by Sean O’Grady – is to be lamented.
The decline of the party into a right-wing faction of mean-spirited fundamentalists committed to nothing more than serving the interests of the wealthy is not what the nation needs, nor what the party’s core supporters deserve. Any genuine democracy needs a serious party in opposition that can hold whatever government is in power to account and engage in mature, reasoned, and pragmatic debate about the nation’s present and future needs. This has been eroded, if not obliterated, by the shallow and self-serving behaviour of the last three prime ministers.
The demise of the current Conservative Party is to be welcomed and cannot happen soon enough, however, it is to be hoped that, after a period of realignment, they will be able to adopt a “Cameron-style agenda” and engage in a proper, grown-up debate that serves the best interests of the electorate and its future needs.
Graham Powell
Cirencester
The Tory Party needs more than a rebrand
Sean O’Grady’s article is a powerful and realistic assessment of the future, or lack of it, under the Conservative and Unionist parties.
Its destruction is, among other things, predicted on the basis of widespread voter awareness and dissatisfaction which is likely to be amplified in the general election by astute tactical voting, a lack of quality and balance in its parliamentary representatives and the proliferation of internal party factions. It is a truism that a house divided against itself cannot stand. The Tory house is now a block of flats and the neighbours don’t get on.
The Conservative Democratic Organisation, a Johnson fan club, moved in last Christmas and wishes its members to have the exclusive rights to elect its own leadership, sidestepping a wider electorate as has occurred in the past. For this to succeed the party must acquire another large working majority in the commons. Thankfully that possibility is remote.
The Tory party are downsizing themselves as they have the country. Irrespective of the obvious power that comes with predominantly pro-Tory media, they seem increasingly likely to prove a politically impotent noise. Some products are simply unsellable and this one needs much more than rebranding.
Given the progress being made by the Lib Dems, for many traditional Tory voters a more natural alternative than Labour, the spectacle of Suella Braverman as leader of the opposition may itself prove unduly optimistic.
David Nelmes
Newport
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