Portfolio Holden

This could almost be a Labour Government. The Home Secretary may be only Colfe's, but he is still that, and the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Foreign Secretary are Winchester, Charterhouse and Eton. Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt were both Head Boy. They and David Cameron all read PPE at Oxford. Sunak is a Brahmin who is richer than the King, to whom Hunt and Cameron are both related. Are they related to each other? Based on the few Labour Governments that there have ever been, only Sunak's and James Cleverly's skin colours preclude this from being one in all but name.

Still, amid the coverage of the first Remainer Foreign Secretary since Liz Truss, let us not lose sight of the fact that Nelly the Effluent has packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus. And within minutes of Richard Holden's departure from the position of Minister for Roads and Local Transport, there was movement on the strike that had all but closed the bus station yards from his constituency office, not that it is any use to us here. Of course, there would be no bus strike under Jamie Driscoll. The terms of participation in his Total Transport Network would make such a dispute impossible.

I want to see Richard carrying a portfolio with "Minister without Portfolio" on it. Peter Mandelson had one. It is a real thing. But the abolition of North West Durham holds no terrors for the Party Chairman. He can give himself any seat he wants. Since the creation of this seat in its present form in 1987, we have had Hilary Armstrong in the Cabinet, Pat Glass in the Shadow Cabinet, Laura Pidcock in the Shadow Cabinet, and now Richard, the constituency's last MP, in the Cabinet. That is a remarkable run.