Suella Braverman cannot survive another breach of the ministerial code

Editorial: You would expect a home secretary and former attorney general to understand such things, and not to embarrass her civil servants by seeking their assistance in conniving her way out of it

The law should apply equally to all (PA)

The dreaded flash, the three points, the “Notice of Intended Prosecution” or the option of a speed-awareness course instead – quite a lot of us have been there. It is hardly surprising that, at this point, a home secretary might calculate that there could be political downsides to having to attend, with members of the public, in person or on Zoom, what is, in effect, a seminar for lawbreakers – however minor the infraction.

And so, given these courses are put on by private contractors, Suella Braverman asks her staff to investigate whether it might be possible to arrange to take the speed-awareness course in private, as a one-on-one session. In the grand scheme of things, it is not the most enormous moral transgression.

But the trouble is, on the face of the available evidence thus far, it is a breach of the ministerial code. Non-political civil servants have been asked for their assistance in sparing the home secretary’s blushes, and to provide her with political assistance, and they have quite correctly refused.