Unless you were one of the two who believe they were sexually harassed by Alex Salmond, this was a good day for women. With Nicola Sturgeon found not to have breached the ministerial code – or misled parliament – on any of the four charges by the independent Hamilton inquiry, Scotland’s first minister was effectively in the clear and free to lead the SNP in the upcoming election campaign.
Not that Sturgeon was particularly in the mood to celebrate during her brief press conference shortly after the publication of the inquiry’s report. That could come later. For now, despite an understandable hint of relief, she still appeared almost numb with stress. Her delivery was flat, her mood brittle as she welcomed the findings. “I have been at peace with my own conscience,” she said. Though the last few months had certainly taken their toll.
She had made some mistakes, Sturgeon said. Others might have acted differently or remembered different things in her situation, but she had not broken the ministerial code. But had she broken the spirit of the code, she was asked. No, she had not. She was sorry if some people found that disappointing, she added sarkily, before repeating that the report had been clear. There had been no violations of the ministerial code.
But what about the Scottish government’s own report into her conduct that was due to be published the next day? Oh, that one. Sturgeon shrugged. That one didn’t really count for anything because the committee was split down partisan lines, with the Tories having already concluded she was guilty before they had even started to hear the evidence. What counted was the independent report. And she was in the clear. To independence and beyond!
Back in Westminster, Priti Patel was also having a good day. But then every day must feel like a good day to the home secretary since Boris Johnson decided that breaking the ministerial code on bullying wasn’t a sackable offence. But Patel’s day was made significantly better for not being asked anything difficult at departmental questions.
The potential for embarrassment had been high. On the night of the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common, Priti Vacant had tweeted about the “upsetting scenes” of police forcibly restraining women, having rather forgotten that the police had been acting on her instructions. But no one thought to bring this up.
Nor did they think to mention the home secretary’s bizarre plan to round up illegal immigrants and asylum seekers on the beaches and send them off to Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, Morocco and Denmark. It was the humane thing to do, Patel had insisted, because it was best all round if the UK offloaded them before they had a chance to discover how unpleasant life was going to be here. It also later turned out that she hadn’t even got round to asking Gibraltar et al if they would even take the asylum seekers, but had just chosen the four destinations at random.
In fact Patel had such an easy ride at Home Office questions that she got by with barely opening her mouth. Call that a win-win. Instead, her junior ministers did all the heavy lifting. Most notably Chris Philp, who you would imagine had undergone a personality transplant, if he had had a personality to transplant. Back in the Cameron years, Philp was one of the wettest of wet Tories: someone who would hug a husky or anything else the leadership demanded. But now he has caught the Johnson zeitgeist and morphed into a “string ’em up and flog ’em” Tory. He is as unconvincing in his new persona as he was in his last.
In a nice symmetrical twist, it had been Theresa May who had fired Patel when the then international development secretary had started freelancing as foreign secretary by conducting secret diplomatic talks with Israel. And it was May who completed the trio of women having one of the better days of their political careers.
Since resigning as prime minister, the Maybot has often seemed like a distant figure. Unloved and ignored – a shadow of her former shadowy self – by her fellow Tory MPs for whom she is an unwelcome reminder of just how close the party came to destroying itself over Brexit. But now she was before the national security committee, whose members were mainly old lags who could remember when politics was an almost honourable profession and were actually pleased to see her.
May didn’t have anything very interesting to say, of course. Some things don’t change. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that she was there. And that people cared about her. The closest she came to news was her observation that it didn’t take too long for members of the National Security Council to regain trust in the process after she sacked Gavin Williamson for leaking details of a meeting. There again, most people would probably feel more secure without Gavin. And it was a gentle reminder that not so long ago, the ministerial code meant pretty much the same both north and south of the Scottish border.
