Dear John,

What do Joe Biden, the 'London dinner party circuit', Ocado, the 'blob of vested interests', the Bank of England, the 'deep state' and Boris Johnson's dog Dilyn have in common? 

I'll give you the length of the email to mull it over. The answer's at the end.

Didn't we write this last week?

On Wednesday, the House of Commons rejected all four amendments to the Safety of Rwanda Bill. The fourth amendment is the real kicker. It's designed to prevent those who have worked with the UK military or government overseas - such as Afghan interpreters - from being sent to Rwanda. This is a £500 million scheme, projected to cost £1.8 million per asylum seeker for the first 300 sent to Rwanda, which could now include those who worked with British armed forces. 

But the Lords is fighting back. The expected capitulation on Wednesday night didn't happen. Peers have voted again for two key amendments to demand changes to the bill - the first being that protection for people who have worked with British armed forces mentioned above; the second saying flights should not take off until a committee of experts set up to monitor the scheme decides Rwanda has fulfilled certain safeguards.

And all this means it's back in the Commons on Monday.

Brexit Corner

Hold your horses

Frontiers sans medicine

The Government must be Weekend Wire subscribers because after dire warnings in last week’s edition (and also in national newspapers) it’s been reported that the new costly post-Brexit border checks they were planning to introduce at the end of this month will be delayed! With these charges on EU imports expected to cost businesses as much as £145 per shipment, this stay of execution will be welcomed by struggling small businesses and consumers alike who will almost certainly see prices increase when these checks are eventually introduced.

New research from the Nuffield Trust shows Brexit has exacerbated medicine shortages in the UK. Shortages more than doubled between 2020 and 2023, and thanks to Brexit, products no longer flow as smoothly across borders - so it's harder to deal with shortages when they arise. And, in the long term, the UK is likely to struggle to approve as many medicines as we did when we were in the EU - meaning we'll have fewer alternatives available if supplies of one drug dry up.

Kudos to Asda chair and Conservative peer Lord Rose who on Sky News said what many in his party are probably thinking quietly. "If you look at the stats, nobody has yet convinced anybody that coming out of the EU was the right thing to do."

Blowback for Sunak

The headline news here seems like a straightforward win for the Prime Minister. His Tobacco and Vapes Bill passed its second reading in the Commons this week by 383 votes to 67 - bringing the UK one step closer to creating a smoke-free future, by outlawing the sale of tobacco products to anyone born after 1 January 2009.

But peel back the layers and we get a different story for Sunak. The bill saw a sizable Tory rebellion with 57 Conservative MPs voting against the plans, and 106 abstaining meaning the PM may be relying on Labour votes to make his plan a reality. Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch and new Conservative deputy chair Jonathan Gullis both voted against, while Foreign Office minister Anne Marie-Trevelyan and Commons leader Penny Mordaunt both abstained. This bill is supposedly Sunak's "top priority" - and if he can't get (or even ask) his MPs to support that, can he really rely on their support until he deigns to call an election?

Rishi Sunak allowed his MPs a free vote on the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. If you were an MP, how would you have voted?

🫣 Cringe Column 😬

Until her entire persona is revealed to be a long-game spoof designed to undermine the credibility of free marketeers, we won't be buying Truss's book. But luckily the Guardian has collated the most eye-popping extracts into a fun quiz. Can you beat our office record of 13/16?

Is the Tory party…OK?

Speaking of eye-popping, Mark Menzies, MP for Fylde, was this week revealed to have (allegedly) used campaign funds to pay off "bad people" who he says locked him in a flat. Menzies phoned a local party volunteer at 3.15am in December asking for £5,000 as a matter of "life and death" - the sum, which rose to £6,500, was paid by his office manager from her personal bank account and later reimbursed from campaign funds.

This isn't the first time Menzies has been embroiled in scandal. After the news broke, old stories resurfaced about him having a lover and drug supplier in the UK illegally (from 2014), and being interviewed by police after being accused of getting a dog drunk and starting a 'brawl' (from 2017). Apparently the Conservative Party has known about this new scandal since January, but only now deemed it right to remove the whip when the it was reported in the Times. Such principles!

In what could have been another entry to Cringe Column, Grant Shapps tried and failed to defend the party's actions on the morning broadcast round asserting that Menzies is 'innocent until proven guilty' and refusing to answer while the situation was being investigated. We’ll leave it to you to decide why on the comparatively paltry allegations against Angela Rayner, Government ministers have been more than happy to give their two cents.

Even former Tory MPs are disgusted by the rank hypocrisy of Sunak's Tories over the matter. In case you haven't read it, do take a look at Nick Boles' letter to the editor of the Times:

The answer to the question of what connects those things listed at the top of the email? A selection of the things which Liz Truss blames, hates or has threatened to abolish. 

Enjoy your weekend.

Julia Meadon
Director of Digital
Best for Britain

🗳️ Follow our new WhatsApp channel for the latest election news & advice 🗳️