‘Suella hasn’t done anything wrong’ insists Mr Loophole
RISHI Sunak has “full confidence” in Suella Braverman after claims she involved civil servants in a speeding ticket row.
The Home Secretary is said to have asked civil servants to organise a private one-toone driving awareness course after she broke the speed limit last summer.
When they refused, she allegedly asked a political aide to help her avoid attending a course with other motorists.
Lawyer Nick Freeman, known as Mr Loophole, said: “She hasn’t done anything wrong. I’ve arranged private courses for several high-profile clients. In fact, course providers prefer it as it is less disruptive.
“If Suella Braverman had had a lawyer, [there] wouldn’t have been political fallout due to confidentiality.”
Labour yesterday claimed this could be a breach of the Ministerial Code and demanded the Prime Minister launch an investigation. But
Mr Sunak did not express unequivocal support for Ms Braverman when asked three times at a press conference in Hiroshima during the G7 summit.
The PM said: “I don’t know the full details of what has happened nor have I spoken to the Home Secretary.
“I understand she’s expressed regret for speeding, accepted the penalty and paid the fine.” A No10 spokeswoman later insisted he does “of course” have full confidence in his Home Secretary. Mr Sunak is expected to speak to Ms Braverman and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case on his return from the G7 meeting. Home Office officials refused her request to help because they were concerned it would breach Civil Service rules, which state they must not interfere in personal matters. Ms Braverman then allegedly turned to a political aide to assist her.
When the course provider said there was no option to do a private course, she paid the fine and accepted the points. Ms Braverman was caught speeding outside London last summer while Attorney General. Cabinet colleague Therese Coffey said the first she knew about it was reading the Sunday newspapers, but Tory MP Jake Berry said there were “definitely questions to be answered”.
It comes as some MPs are furious about what they believe is the Home Secretary positioning herself for a leadership challenge.
THE impartiality of the civil service is supposed to be a central pillar of our democracy. But that principle is now increasingly undermined within Whitehall by partisan officials who despise the Tory Government.
Infused with self-righteous arrogance and progressive ideology, these bureaucrats seem to think it their duty to bring down individual ministers rather than support them.
The latest target in this campaign of character assassination is the tough-minded Home Secretary Suella Braverman. Already a hate figure on the Left because of her robust views on crime and border controls, she arouses a particular brand of fury as a Conservative woman of immigrant heritage.
In the misogynistic, bigoted mentality of the social justice brigade, awash with stereotypes, any refusal by ethnic minority female politicians to submit to the Left-wing orthodoxy can be viewed as a form of treachery.
The current attempt to destroy Ms Braverman revolves around a row about a speeding offence she committed last summer when Attorney General.
ACCORDING to the allegations of her enemies, some of them in her own party, she is guilty of serious misconduct. Parallels have even been drawn with the downfall of Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne, who almost became Leader of his party, but went to prison in 2012 after falsely claiming his wife had been the driver when he was caught exceeding the speed limit on the M11 in Cambridge.
In Ms Braverman’s case, beyond the actual speeding offence itself, she does not seem to have done much wrong at all. For all the breathless hysteria the episode has generated – including the top billing on news bulletins – it is a non-story where accusations of abuse of office don’t stand up to scrutiny.
According to yesterday’s reports, when Ms Braverman received the notice from the police about her breach of the speed limit, she was offered – like most motorists – the alternatives of either attendance on a Speed Awareness course or acceptance of a fine and three points on her licence.
Fearing that the latter would push up her insurance premiums, she initially opted for the former. But her choice was complicated by her high-profile position, which made her reluctant to join other members of the public, either in person or in a virtual setting.
She asked her civil servants to find out if a private, one-toone course could be arranged, but they told her they could not become involved. So she sought help from her special adviser, but was soon informed that no course providers would agree to individual tuition.
Now very busy following her elevation to the Home Office, she decided simply to pay the fine and take the points. Unless some dramatic new evidence emerges, that’s it. She was not disqualified, nor faced any further action.
She obeyed the law and paid her dues, while her initial misdemeanour hardly puts her in a gallery of shame – in 2020, almost two million Britons were given speeding tickets.
The public would not even know about this had some politically motivated opportunist not leaked it to the press. Rarely in modern politics has any scandal had such a flimsy basis. Few Ministers would survive long in office if this kind of purity test were widely applied.
DESPERATE to keep the balloon of this controversy aloft, the never-knowingly under-hyped Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper predictably demanded an inquiry, claiming Ms Braverman “tried to abuse her position to get round normal rules, so it is one rule for her and another for anyone else”.
That is desperate stuff. The whole point is Ms Braverman was not treated any differently from the rest of the public.
What this incident really shows is the willingness of parts of the unaccountable state to engage in witch-hunts against the Government. The apparent vendetta against Ms Braverman follows the ejection of the Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab over charges of “bullying” civil servants. He too was an uncompromising politician.
Similar accusations of bullying were made against former Home Secretary Priti Patel, now a backbencher, and more recently against Health Secretary Steve Barclay.
It is as if the civil service blob is picking off its opponents one by one. That is an affront to our Parliamentary traditions. If a Government is to be brought down, it should be by the will of the electorate, not the sinister machinations of officialdom.
‘For all the breathless hysteria this episode is a non-story’