Latest news with #CommonsSpeaker
Telegraph
17-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Labour refuses to rule out gagging MPs and press again
Downing Street has refused to rule out seeking super-injunctions in the future despite anger over the Afghan data leak cover-up. As fresh details of the controversy emerged on Thursday, free speech campaigners said the use of the courts to prevent the public from knowing about the security breach, and subsequent secret asylum scheme, should never be repeated. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, has ordered an urgent review of the actions of successive governments in keeping him and MPs in the dark about the covert programme to bring up to 24,000 Afghans to the UK at a potential cost of £7bn. He is not expected to take any action until the Clerk of the Commons has completed the review, but has made clear in private that he feels 'let down' by the current and previous administrations. The High Court granted a super-injunction two years ago banning anyone, including MPs and the media, from revealing that the names of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been accidentally leaked by a Royal Marine. It also prevented the public from finding out that billions of pounds had been set aside for a scheme to bring some of the people affected to the UK. Speaker 'angry and let down' A source close to Sir Lindsay said: 'He was told about the super-injunction when it was first imposed, when it was to protect the identities of people involved in a data breach, but he was never updated on the terms of the injunction being changed in subsequent hearings, or that the intelligence and security committee (ISC) hadn't been informed. 'He wants quick answers on this because he feels angry and let down. He is annoyed at the way the details of what happened are being drip-fed to the public now.' However, when asked whether the Prime Minister would rule out ever seeking super-injunctions in the future, a Downing Street spokesman said: 'We're not going to comment on a hypothetical situation, but our broad principle is, of course, that government business should be carried out transparently and as transparently as possible.' Lord Beamish, the chairman of the ISC, took the unusual step of releasing a public statement making clear the committee's displeasure with the Government. He said it had demanded to be provided with defence intelligence reports relating to Operation Rubific – the codename for the Government's response to the data breach – as well as the legal advice given to ministers that kept the ISC in the dark. The committee, which oversees the work of the security services, is made up of MPs and peers who are security cleared to handle highly classified material. Meanwhile, Lord Young, the founder of the Free Speech Union (FSU), said he would like governments to be prevented from being granted super-injunctions, either by law or a convention in the courts. He said: 'There are some circumstances in which it is clearly right for governments to be able to keep things secret, but I would have thought those circumstances are all covered – and then some – by the Official Secrets Act. 'The problem with governments being able to silence the press via super-injunctions is that they'll inevitably make use of them to save themselves from political embarrassment, which was clearly a factor in this case.' Dr Bryn Harris, chief legal counsel of the FSU, added: 'Ministers and government departments are not private citizens – they belong indissociably to the public sphere, where their actions can be scrutinised and held to account. 'The use of super-injunctions to cosset ministers, as though they were embarrassed celebrities rather than servants of the Crown, is new, abhorrent and must never be repeated.' David Davis, the former Cabinet minister and free speech campaigner, said: 'A super-injunction for up to three months would have been justifiable to get Afghans out, but the ISC, and the defence select committee, should all know about it. 'Whitehall has a propensity for secrecy, particularly when it has screwed up.'
Telegraph
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Lord only knows the pressure Rachel Reeves is under
Can there be anyone who didn't feel absolutely mortified by the sight of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, crying during Prime Minister's Questions? It was slightly heartbreaking and very troubling. These weren't misty eyes that could be explained away by adult onset hay fever, or tears welling at the sound of another screeching U-turn on her swingeing (now swinging in the wind) welfare cuts. This was actual weeping, and it was beyond uncomfortable to watch. If, as her spokesman later insisted, her heightened emotional state was down to a personal matter, why on earth was she forced to sit on the front bench in the televised Westminster bear pit, for all the world to see? Whatever upset her – she says this visible anguish wasn't prompted by looming redundancy, and some are pointing to a row with the Commons Speaker – it was obviously impossible to put aside for the length of PMQs. So why did she turn up to what was going to be a humiliating exchange about the government's welfare omnishambles? From the outset Reeves, 46, looked a shadow of her former self. Gone was the shiny helmet of blow-dried hair, the set chin and the slightly pursed lips we've come to expect of the Chancellor. She appeared sleep-deprived, diminished, dishevelled even, as she fought to control her mouth and blink through the tears that rolled down her face. Show this to your daughters the next time they wonder about entering the 'rough and tumble' of politics. Nobody likes a full-on altercation with a colleague in the office. After a certain age, we tend to swear under our breath or kick a waste paper basket, rather than bursting into tears. If Reeves had indeed just received a dressing down from Sir Lindsay Hoyle before taking her place beside the Prime Minister, her response speaks less to any innate sensitivity – you don't rise to her rank without a thick skin – and more to the extraordinary strain of the job. Lord only knows the pressure Reeves is under. Aside from the vile trolling aimed at all female MPs, the mother of two will be working 24/7 under the glare of media, and getting it in the neck from everyone: backbenchers, the bond markets, cabinet colleagues determined to prise more money for their departments, and no doubt about it, a PM appalled to discover the depth of feeling in the rank and file about her scrabbling down the back of the Benefits Street sofa to balance the books. Now the climb-down has left her with a £5 billion black hole to fill and her reputation in tatters. When Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, commented that Reeves looked 'absolutely miserable', she was underplaying it. In truth, she looked broken. It did not help matters when Starmer was asked whether the Chancellor would keep her job until the next election – and he dodged the question. 'How awful for the Chancellor that he couldn't confirm that she would stay in place,' purred Badenoch. It was a vanishingly rare bullseye, but felt uncomfortably Mean Girls, so nobody came out of it well. Life happens. Politicians cry. But usually only when they leave their jobs – either voluntarily or not – with the dishonourable exception of our former health secretary, Matt Hancock, who fake cried on Good Morning Britain when 81-year-old William 'Bill' Shakespeare received the UK's first Covid vaccine, but signally failed to emote after he was caught snogging his closest aide in his ministerial office in breach of his own Covid rules, and indeed marriage vows. What the future holds for Reeves, who knows? Without wishing to intrude on personal grief, I suggest that she rest up, buy herself a Dyson Airwrap pronto, and multi-style herself back into the spotlight before her P45 arrives in the post.
