Latest editorial
Conservative MP Scott Benton speaking to the media on College Green in central London, June 2023
RISHI SUNAK faced a fresh by-election nightmare today with yet another Tory MP set to be suspended from the Commons amid scandal.
Blackpool South MP Scott Benton was recommended for a 35-day suspension by the Commons standards committee after telling undercover reporters that he was up for lucrative lobbying on behalf of gambling interests, actions the committee said undermined democracy.
The suspension, certain to be endorsed by MPs, is well over the limit for triggering a recall petition in his constituency.
Once derided by Farage as a ‘fraud,’ Jenrick has defected to Reform, bringing experience and political ruthlessness to the populist right — and raising the unsettling prospect of a Farage-led movement with a seasoned operative pulling the strings, says ANDREW MURRAY
