Labour hailed the Foreign Secretary... mainly to spite Boris

Almost as likely as Boris Johnson being announced as our new Prime minister this morning will be the subsequent phoney display of unity between him and Jeremy Hunt.

The two will shake hands and congratulate each other on their campaigns. there may be a vague pledge to split a bottle of something one evening – most likely this will never happen. the intriguing question on everybody else’s lips, however, will be: what’ll Boris do with the Foreign secretary?

sacking your leadership rival from the Cabinet hardly seems wise when you are trying to unify the party. It can also look petty and vengeful.

But this is Boris we’re talking about, to whom the usual politics do not apply. the gossip in Westminster is that those unnecessary ‘coward’ jibes that Hunt made when Boris refused to appear in the first television debate have not been forgotten. Judging by the mood in the Commons yesterday, MPS clearly think Hunt is for the chop.

the Foreign secretary had been required to make a statement in the chamber on the seizure in the Gulf of a British-flagged oil tanker. Usually, one would expect the opposition benches to milk such an embarrassing episode for the Government, not least because the minister on whose watch it occurred has been busy hotfooting around the country fighting a leadership contest.

Instead, mr Hunt’s opponents were full of generous tributes. No doubt some of them were genuine. But mostly these were done, one suspects, just to irritate Boris.

Fabian Hamilton (lab – leeds North East), standing in for Emily thornberry – who was injured in a cycling accident and taken to hospital – commended mr Hunt for the work ethic he has brought to the Foreign office.

I hadn’t heard mr Hamilton in the chamber before. Witty, erudite chap. shackled with the daftest-sounding job in the House: ‘shadow minister for peace and disarmament’.

stephen Gethins (SNP – North East Fife) similarly praised mr Hunt’s seriousness. From the Government front bench there came heartily approving ‘yer-yers’ from Hunt- backers Penny mordaunt, liam Fox and Amber Rudd.

mr Hunt expressed his relief that his opponent’s comments came after 5pm when the Conservative leadership ballot closed. It probably wouldn’t have done him much favours with the tory membership, he said, had they heard labour MPS

being so nice about him. there were warm tributes too for his deputy Alan Duncan, who had resigned earlier before Boris could sack him.

mr Hamilton congratulated sir Alan for his work in the Foreign office, pointing out that he should be forgiven for bailing out ‘before the bad times to come’.

sir Alan issued a salty cackle. He was fiddling with his telephone, which had one of those emergency battery chargers attached. Clearly it had been whirring all morning. SIR

Alan had unsuccessfully attempted to table an emergency motion to force a Commons vote on whether mr Johnson had the right to form a government. I noted sir Alan entering the chamber shortly after announcing on television that the motion had been rejected by the speaker. He didn’t appear happy about the decision.

He arrived at the close of questions on housing, pausing theatrically at the door before making the long walk to the backbenches.

Plonking himself down on the green leather despondently, Colonel Bob stewart (Beckenham) threw an avuncular arm around sir Alan. Before long, a doughnut of tory chums had formed around him. these included Richard Graham (Gloucester), Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) and James Cartlidge (south suffolk). sir Alan looked so delighted with the new-found attention he could have been a tabby cat having his tummy tickled. Perched in front of him was Andrea leadsom, tipped for a return to Cabinet under Boris. she pointedly ignored him.