In today's Playbook — Knives out for Suella Braverman as she returns to the Home Office

Truss ally says she was known in govt as "leaky Sue" and accuses her of having "leaked OBR-sensitive information and then lied to the prime minister and the country about what happened" pic.twitter.com/lob6dt9wEn

— Eleni Courea (@elenicourea) October 26, 2022

Suella Braverman did not mistakenly leak a meaningless document. She endlessly consulted a maverick. She deliberately emailed a policy doc not yet agreed to her pvt email. Then she sent it to John Hayes and someone she thought was his wife. Then lied to PM about when it was sent pic.twitter.com/WvjnMT7Cvw

— Tim Shipman (@ShippersUnbound) October 25, 2022

Appointing Braverman shows Sunak’s weakness

I know it is gauche to talk about your winning bets but one of the reasons I felt confident on betting that premiership of Liz Truss would be brief was the absolute cabinet of talentless roasters and ideologues she assembled, primus inter pares was the appointment of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary. Normally I’m a fan of Cambridge educated lawyers, such as Ken Clarke and Geoffrey Cox but Braverman isn’t part of that illustrious company.

Braverman finished behind Tom Tugendhat in the first Tory leadership and yet Truss kept him out of the full cabinet and yet appointed Braverman as Home Secretary, one of the reasons this was a red flag for me was her shameful tenure as Attorney General, lest we forget she advocating breaking a treaty, something her predecessors condemned her for.

If we want to live a thriving democracy then the government law officers should not be advocating such things. If you can break that law/treaty then perhaps there are other laws she would advocate for political reasons. This is a toxic mix for an attorney general and even worse for Home Secretary. If Liz Truss hadn’t sacked Braverman then Braverman would have destabilised her further. If Sunak doesn’t do what Braverman she will destabilise him like she did to Truss.

It is a weakness of Sunak that he had to reappoint Braverman to keep the ERG/Spartan Brexiteers onside given than he has inherited a majority of circa 70, a powerful PM would have left Braverman on the backbenches in disgrace.

I also expect the Tory polling to get worse because the voters have yet to feel the effects of increased mortgage costs which generally doesn’t lead to support for the government going up. If the Tory polling gets worse which could lead to Sunak being replaced for the general election, especially with a king over the benches which could see the Tories hoping for a 2019 redux. If Sunak is the male Truss what’s the point of keeping him?

So I will be betting on Sunak not being Tory leader at the next GE, you can get 13.5 on Smarkets on Boris Johnson as Tory leader at the next GE, which is the best proxy bet I can find.

If there was a betting market on the length of Braverman’s second stint as Home Secretary I would be backing a short stint. Labour smell blood, as the Guardian report about PMQs

Asked if officials had raised concerns about the appointment, given the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, was said to have been furious, Sunak dodged the question and said he had already “addressed the issue”. Starmer said the evasion showed that while there was a “new Tory at the top”, Sunak had demonstrated he would put the “party first and country second”.

Then after PMQs Yvette Cooper raised an urgent question which the cowardly Braverman fled the Commons chamber and left it to some poor minister to deal with the mess, with allegations that Braverman has form for being leaky. If it turns out Braverman’s behaviour last week is the norm then she’s toast. National Security isn’t something a party can be weak on.

Short of making Boris Johnson his ethics adviser I cannot think of a more disastrous and inappropriate appointment by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak than reappointing Braverman as Home Secretary six days after leaving the Home Office.

TSE