Jawad Iqbal

The appearance at the Covid inquiry of Martin Reynolds has been a real eye-opener in some rather unexpected ways. Reynolds was one of the most senior civil servants in Downing Street in the lead-up to the 2020 pandemic, effectively acting as the prime minister’s eyes and ears. The former principal private secretary to Boris Johnson came to public attention for issuing invitations to a lockdown-breaking party in the garden of No. 10 during the first lockdown. Reynolds' cross examination by Hugo Keith KC, counsel for the inquiry, turned into a brutal affair. Keith referred to a message on 23 January 2020, saying two people were admitted to hospital with Covid in January. A Cobra meeting was proposed, but Boris Johnson did not chair it.

It was always a question of when, not if, the Labour party would start tearing itself apart over the Israel-Hamas war. The only surprise is the scale and speed with which the veneer of party unity has crumbled. It has revealed deep and vitriolic divisions between the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer over his support for Israel, and the pro-Palestinian views of some of his Muslim MPs and others in the wider party. Starmer knows he has a big problem. But he doesn’t necessarily know what to do about it or indeed how best to keep a lid on it.  The internal party rift shows no signs of healing any time soon The scale of the dissent and unhappiness over the Labour leader’s pro-Israel stance appears to have taken the party high command by surprise.

John Bercow, the former speaker of the House of Commons and one of the most divisive figures in modern politics, has signed up to to appear in the US version of the hit series The Traitors. Anyone struggling to understand how or why probably doesn’t know that video clips of Bercow arbitrating Brexit parliamentary debates and PMQs have made him something of a cult figure in the eyes of American viewers. The show, set in a castle in the Scottish Highlands, sees players secretly divided into the 'faithful' and a smaller group of 'traitors'. The few, who cannot be trusted, have to eliminate the other contestants to win the £205,000 cash prize. No prizes for guessing which group many of his former Conservative colleagues think Bercow belongs to.

Simon McDonald, the former Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office, really needs to engage his brain before opening his mouth — especially when the television cameras are rolling. Lord McDonald of Salford has admitted revealing to his staff as well as ministers that he voted Remain in the 2016 EU referendum. His jaw-dropping confession — effectively a public admission from a former senior mandarin that he breached sacrosanct civil service impartiality rules  — comes in a BBC documentary series on Brexit, Laura Kuenssberg: State of Chaos. Why on earth did he do it? His attempts at an explanation justifying this dereliction of duty reveal much about the sorry state of the civil service.

Rishi Sunak, the first British leader of Indian descent, has to walk an unenviable political tightrope at this weekend’s G20 Summit in India. It is Sunak’s first visit to the country as prime minister, and Indians have given him the kind of welcome usually reserved for an all-conquering hero returning home. Sunak himself acknowledged that the trip was ‘special’. This mutual fawning aside, Sunak’s Indian roots actually make his task of securing the best trade deal for Britain in talks with India that little bit harder.  Indians clearly love the idea that Sunak has risen to the top in Britain, treating him as one of their own, even though he was born in Hampshire. The story of his roots is what matters to Indians.

India’s rulers are apparently unhappy with the country’s name and appear determined to do away with it altogether. They would prefer it if everyone – not just in India but across the rest of the world – used the name 'Bharat' when referring to it. Changing India’s name is political madness, amounting to nothing more than a divisive ploy dreamt up by Hindu nationalists for short term gain.  Rumours of an imminent name change have been flying after official invites for the G20 summit asked leaders to join the 'president of Bharat' for dinner. Officials also used the term in a handbook – called 'Bharat, The Mother of Democracy' – issued to foreign delegates heading to the summit.

Whose fault is it that Labour-controlled Birmingham city council, the country’s biggest local authority, is now effectively bankrupt? The answer, according to the council’s leaders, is that it is anyone and everyone’s fault except their own. It is the fault of the government for imposing funding cuts over the last decade, the ballooning costs of rolling out a new IT system, and a historic equal pay settlement that is proving impossible to fund. In other words, it is nothing to do with those actually elected to run Birmingham. Is anyone surprised that politicians are held in such low esteem by the voters?  The bare facts are these. The council has issued a section 114 notice, signalling that it does not have the money to balance its budget.