I found an incredibly likeable person – but although he knuckled down and scored some successes, he was better placed as Chief Whip than Defence Secretary.
The only worse scores we can find were awarded to Vince Cable and Chris Huhne at their lowest points in the Coalition.
In Birmingham, rail has recently become the leading mode for commuting – overtaking the car. This makes it the only city outside London where this is true.
Plus: What would it take to get the Cabinet leavers to resign? Clarke’s Maastricht Treaty Customs Union moment. And: in defence of Robbie Gibb.
Now some of these MPs may have been ill, or absent, or abroad. But how many were slipped with the connivance of the system?
The Transport Secretary appeared to loiter enthusiastically, preventing Gauke, Rudd and Clark getting the shot they might have wanted.
Javid almost doubles his rating after his decisive handling of Begum. Meanwhile Rudd, Gauke and Clark all fall. And Grayling plumbs new depths.
The Labour leader leads with the collapse of the Government’s contract with Seaborne Freight.
Mordaunt, Rudd and Hancock offer three examples in today’s papers of how British politics work now.
The biggest defeat in modern times and the largest Tory rebellion won’t stop her trying to resurrect her deal.
“What we will have is the arrival in this country of the sort of populist politics on the extremes that we’re seeing in most other European countries.”