Fortune May Not Favour The Braverman

It was the cabinet appointment - indeed, reappointment - that caused some pundits to wonder if Rishi Sunak’s judgment may be just a little wobbly, a little short of self awareness: Suella Braverman, whose apparently enforced departure from the Home Office had stressed Liz Truss’ tenure in 10 Downing Street beyond the feasible limit of its structural integrity, at the Home Office.

The MP known in private, and now increasingly in public, as “Leaky Sue” had used a personal email account to send classified material. She had sent it to someone who was not even an MP, perhaps accidentally. But little more than a week after that departure, here she was again. It was rumoured that Sunak may have offered her the job to get her on board in the leadership contest.

That, in turn, may have enabled Sunak to both head off any possibility of momentum building behind Penny Mordaunt, and the greater danger, a vote of the Tory membership between Sunak and disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson which Bozo would have won, such is the total lack of racist bigotry among the Tory grassroots.

But now Ms Braverman is back at the Home Office, and distracting significantly from any move by Sunak to get on the front foot, to get his agenda out there and begin to improve Tory poll numbers ahead of the inevitable General Election. So he needs to take action. Because while he prevaricates, the horror stories about Ms Braverman are mounting up.

Jake Berry, who represents Rossendale and Darwen, and who served with Ms Braverman in Ms Truss’ cabinet, told Murdoch property TalkTV that she had committed “multiple breaches” of the Ministerial Code, including “documents on cybersecurity”. Labour’s Yvette Cooper asked Sunak “what security warnings did you ignore when you reappointed Home Secretary?”

Birmingham Yardley MP Jess Phillips wondered if someone may have, as the saying goes, misled the Commons: “Sunak said today in the Commons that Braverman raised the issue of the security breach. But that doesn't seem to be the case, so did Braverman lie to him or did Sunak lie to the Commons?” In one bound, Sunak may find himself embroiled in the mire.

Meanwhile, the pressure on Ms Braverman continues to build, with the Tweeter known as My Sweet Landlord spelling out why her story may not hold up for long, telling “What we need to establish is whether Suella Braverman lied when she stated that she immediately reported herself through official channels for leaking a sensitive document”.

Labour MP Chris Bryant was interviewed by former BBC man Andrew Marr, now at LBC, and told Marr that, in his opinion, Ms Braverman was a threat to national security. The London Evening Standard told readers “Britain’s spy chiefs may be reluctant to share sensitive information with Suella Braverman after her controversial reappointment as Home Secretary”.

A sense of Ms Braverman’s appointment unravelling was inescapable: with the Sunday papers looming in the very near distance, My Sweet Landlord mused “Andrew Percy has a copy of the Suella Braverman email. With time-stamp. Braverman claimed she did not have her phone with her during the dawn immigration raid. Let's see what time it was sent. Very simple way of getting to the truth”. And a further question then entered.

If Sunak is as ruthless as some of his detractors have made out, could he have gamed the whole thing and concluded that before long, information will emerge that will make Ms Braverman’s position untenable, even by the standards of today’s Tory party? If so, she will have outstayed her usefulness and, secure in Downing Street, he can dispatch her to the back benches.

Anyone out there who enjoys a bet may already have put a few quid on her no longer being Home Secretary come Monday morning. If only because, as Andrew Marr warned on his LBC show yesterday evening, the longer she is in post, the more damage she does to Sunak’s premiership. “The Braverman problem is wrecking [his and the Tories’] fresh start” he concluded.

And if Sunak sacks her, there will be no way back. Just rejoice at that news.

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