Downing Street has refused to say if Rishi Sunak believes Boris Johnson misled MPs, declining repeatedly to express any view at all on a Commons vote that censured the former prime minister. Britain’s whole system of critical national infrastructure remains “wildly under-resilient”, the Covid-19 inquiry has been told by Oliver Letwin, who was responsible for emergency planning in the coalition government. George Osborne, the former chancellor, has said he completely rejects claims that austerity weakened the UK’s health and social care capacity before Covid. (See 2.47pm.) David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, has said that Labour will not try to rejoin the single market or the customs union because it needs to be “pragmatic”. In a speech at Best for Britain’s Trade Unlocked conference, he said: The next Labour government will not rejoin the EU, the single market or customs union. I know that disappoints some people here today. But I’ve spent the last 18 months travelling around Europe, meeting counterparts, building relationships, talking to our sister parties. It’s mistaken to think that after such a messy divorce it is possible to propose marriage again even before two ex-partners have gone on a date. The next Labour government will be focused on what is pragmatic, turning the page on the era of acrimony that this government has overseen, which has seen trust undermined, cooperation stall and our economy damaged. But Lammy also said that it was a “fantasy” to think the relationship with the EU was not important. He explained: Last week the Conservative party press office attacked me for saying that improving our relationship with the EU will be a priority of the next Labour government. I have no qualms about repeating this. Reconnecting Britain must start by reconnecting with our European neighbours. Because the EU are our biggest trading partners. And our allies as we face war on our continent. If you do not think Britain’s relationship with Europe is of fundamental importance to our future, you are living in a fantasy. Pressure is growing on the former Tory London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey not to accept the peerage offered to him by Boris Johnson, as a senior Conservative MP said he should “consider his position”. Nadine Dorries, the Boris Johnson cheerleader and former culture secretary, has suggested that Harriet Harman’s revelation last night that No 10 wanted her to carry on as chair of the privileges committee, despite people claiming that she had posted tweets implying she was biased against Johnson, showed that Downing Street was engaged in some sort of anti-Johnson conspiracy. She posted this on Twitter.
But Dorries seems to have forgotten when she posted her tweet that it was not Rishi Sunak who was in No 10 when it approved the Harman appointment, but Johnson himself.