Isabel Hardman

Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle has confirmed a new set of government departments focused on science and business, and a new party chair. That's all well and good: the Prime Minister is very keen to make Britain a science superpower and wants to put the right people in the right jobs as he prepares for the next election. Civil servants are moving into new jobs, as are ministers. The new departments will use the existing government estate, but it isn't yet clear where they'll all be. But there are a number of potential problems with what's been announced today.Is this the right reorganisation of Whitehall?

Rishi Sunak has been blessed with interventions from two out of the three former prime ministers who are serving in the Commons today. Only one will be welcome: Boris Johnson made an unusually helpful contribution from the backbenches this afternoon at Home Office Questions when he asked about the Rwanda deportation policy. He said: Isn’t it obvious from today’s exchanges that many of those who oppose the UK-Rwanda migration and economic development partnership have no idea about Rwanda, have probably never been there, and are wholly wrong to condescend and to disparage Rwanda in the way that they do. And above all they have not the ghost of an idea about how to solve the problem of cross-Channel gangs putting people at risk.

Have Conservative ministers lost the battle on sewage? Once again, Tory MPs have been engulfed by a tide of fury from campaigners and constituents who say they've 'voted in favour of dumping sewage' in rivers and the sea. This is not the first, or indeed the second, time they've been on the end of these accusations, and frustration is bubbling over in the party.I've been passed some WhatsApp exchanges in which backbenchers have been kicking up a stink about the way ministers and officials keep failing to roll the pitch on sewage ahead of key votes and debates. The latest row concerns a deferred division on 25 January on water regulations, which set a target for an 80 per cent reduction in phosphates in rivers by 2038, all of which sounds very technical.

Rishi Sunak was clearly not on a fasting day of his diet when he stood up at Prime Minister's Questions this afternoon. He seemed to have consumed all the Weetabix in SW1, with more energy behind his attacks on Keir Starmer than he's had for weeks. This didn't mean the session veered away from its standard theme of two men fighting over who is the weaker, like dads at a barbecue vying over their DIY failures while burning the chicken.  Each week's weak-off has the same lines. Sunak's are that Starmer sat next to Jeremy Corbyn for 'four long years, not challenging him' and that he can't stand up to his union bosses. Meanwhile Starmer regularly accuses Sunak of not standing up to his own predecessors and cabinet colleagues who are mired in sleaze and bullying allegations.

A telling moment in today’s urgent question on the IMF’s economic outlook came when Angela Eagle pointed out the dearth of Tories who’d turned up to hear the Treasury defend its performance. She said: Despite the minister’s bluster, the benches opposite are empty. They haven’t come in in large numbers to defend the government’s economic, er, results, have they? Eagle argued that this was because the IMF had offered a ‘devastating forecast’ which ‘laid bare the economic incompetence’. But there’s another reason why the government benches were so quiet. It’s that the Conservative party machinery simply isn’t working very well.

Jeremy Hunt is giving a speech that is part of the government's economic relaunch this morning. The Chancellor is going to argue that the 'declinism' narrative about Britain is wrong and that 'the UK is poised to play a leading role in Europe and across the world on the growth sectors which will define this century'. He is trying to switch from his own previously downbeat tone about things getting worse before they get better, in part as a response to the Trussite Tories who are highlighting Britain's anaemic growth.  The interesting thing about the Truss bunch is that while many Tory MPs dismiss them as 'deranged', they then add in the same breath 'but Liz did have a point about growth, funnily enough'.

Keir Starmer could have made Prime Minister's Questions much more uncomfortable for Rishi Sunak, given the state of the Tory party. The Labour leader decided to focus his first three questions on the murder of Zara Aleena and the Probation Service failings that allowed her death to happen.  Starmer listed the devastating findings of the Chief Inspector of Probation into the case, which included short staffing, excessive workload and systemic problems which meant such a murder could happen again. He linked this to the government's 'botched and then reversed privatisation after a decade of underinvestment'.

In the past few minutes, Lancashire Police has confirmed that Rishi Sunak has received a fixed penalty notice for sitting in a moving car without wearing a seatbelt. The Prime Minister filmed a video while touring the north west on Thursday which showed he had taken his seatbelt off, and a statement from the constabulary this evening said: You will be aware that a video has been circulating on social media showing an individual failing to wear a seatbelt while a passenger in a moving car in Lancashire. After looking into this matter, we have today (Friday, January 20th) issued a 42-year-old man from London with a conditional offer of fixed penalty.

How serious are the Conservatives about levelling up? Their MPs have reportedly been told not to use the phrase in their campaign literature, presumably on the basis that it is meaningless. Today, however, ministers are fanning out across the country to make a big fuss about the latest round of levelling up funding. The biggest problem with levelling up is that local government is not strong in many areas Rishi Sunak is in the north west promising to 'build a future of optimism and pride in people's lives and the places they call home'. It's all nice and good, but even the MPs who are getting funding today are struggling to feel a sense of optimism about the future of their seats.

The Commons was wearily furious as it responded to the David Carrick case this morning. Carrick yesterday admitted 49 sexual offences across more than two decades as a Metropolitan Police officer. The fury of MPs didn’t stop at the police. There was a great deal of frustration with ministers for being too slow to do what they could to stop offenders continuing to work as police officers after complains had been made.  This frustration didn’t just come from shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, but from Tory backbenchers too. The most notable critic on Suella Braverman’s own side was Priti Patel. The former home secretary was customarily polite, but complained that there were already options for the Home Office to act on. She said: The recommendations are already there.