Like so many Tory MPs, Andy Carter owes his seat to Boris Johnson and his staunchly pro-Brexit platform at the last general election.
Now the Member for Warrington South, who won a 2,000-strong majority in his ‘Red Wall’ constituency in 2019, is thought to be on a ‘chicken run’, battling to secure a safer seat ahead of next year’s predicted Labour victory.
Polls suggest Labour has a 90 per cent chance of winning Warrington South, and Carter is said to be eyeing up Chester South and Eddisbury, a new seat formed after boundary changes, which is predicted to go Tory.
The problem? He is also one of the four Tory MPs on Harriet Harman’s Privileges Committee, which voted last week to ban Boris from Parliament for 90 days — the second-longest suspension in 75 years — and the ex-PM’s supporters are enraged by Carter’s actions.
‘Boris is hugely popular with the party in the country,’ says one ally. ‘Backstabbers like Andy need to think of a new career after the next election because they won’t be MPs any more.’
Tory MP Andy Carter (pictured) sits on the committee which voted to ban Boris Johnson from parliament despite the fact he owes his Red Wall seat to the former prime minister and his pro-Brexit platform
Bercow’s back, why not Boris?
Last year, ex-Speaker John Bercow’s Parliamentary pass was confiscated after the Commons standards watchdog ruled he had bullied staff and lied to its inquiry.
This was the same punishment meted out to Boris Johnson by the Privileges Committee — yet last week, Bercow was spotted on the parliamentary estate.
Was he lobbying for a peerage? No, he was attending a party for Labour’s Lord (Alfred) Dubs.
His unwelcome presence underlines the vindictiveness of withdrawing Boris’s pass. After all, the ex-PM will still be free to visit Westminster any time an MP invites him.
The knighthood for Terry Waite reminds me of an interesting exchange he had with Bernard Manning.
The late comedian asked Waite, who was held captive in Lebanon for four years after trying to free hostages there, what he had been doing since his release.
Waite told him he was going on the BBC quiz show Mastermind, and Manning asked what his chosen subject was.
Waite deadpanned: ‘Beirut radiators, 1987-1991.’
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Penny’s pithy jibe at SNP
Commons Leader Penny Mourdant (pictured) praised Humza Yousaf for being ‘the first SNP First Minister not to have been arrested’
A typically pithy intervention from Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt, who tells MPs: ‘I’m going to lavish praise on the Scottish government this week because of their First Minister Humza Yousaf’s landmark achievement.
‘Credit where it is due: he has the honour of being the first SNP First Minister not to have been arrested.’
As well as Nicola Sturgeon’s legal troubles, her predecessor Alex Salmond was acquitted of sexual assault charges in 2020.
Mordaunt might have added that two Labour First Ministers, Jack McConnell and his predecessor Henry McLeish, were also interviewed by police, the former over allegations of cash for honours and the latter over allegations of fraudulent expenses claims.
What a record!
The House of Lords has nodded through the appointment of crossbencher Lord (Peter) Ricketts as chairman of its European Affairs Committee.
If it really wants to make Brexit a success, the Government is mad not to have stopped this.
Ricketts is a former Sir Humphrey at the Foreign Office, and the sort of Establishment Remoaner who would, were his trousers ever forcibly removed, probably be found wearing EU flag Y-fronts.
British actress Lesley-Anne Down, now based in America, is to play Margaret Thatcher in a Ronald Reagan biopic.
She tweeted: ‘President Obama and Biden both removed the bust of Sir Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, President Trump installed it back when he was in office.
Why you would remove a war hero and the man who was in charge of saving us all from the Nazis?’
The Iron Lady herself could scarcely have put it better.
