It’s been an enormous joy and privilege to serve as a minister over most of the last 8 years.

I’m proud of all we have achieved as a government, not least being the first major economy to halve CO2 emissions.

I look forward to supporting the PM from the backbenches.

Quite tricky that once you reach the point where New Yorker longread autopsies of the Tories’ time in government exist, the only way to go journalistically is to try and predict what happens to the party after an election that hasn’t been announced

🚨New PoliticsHome podcast🚨

Can the Tories survive? With defeat likely the Conservative Party faces an existential crisis, so does it still have a future?

I discuss with Paul Scully MP, Katy Balls, Henry Hill and Gavin Rice 🇬🇧 on this week’s episode.

🎧: pod.fo/e/2307df

Keir has come out for 2.5%. Labour has been criticising govt for 2.5 ambition on basis there’s no clear plan for meeting it & no timeline. Now Labour has done the same.

As I reported last mnth there’s been internal pressure to go bigger on defence spend👉 politicshome.com/thehouse/artic…

Exc: Whistleblower claims ‘gang' of consultants involved in cover-up at the Royal Sussex County Hospital.

NHS Trust bosses were warned 22 times about patient safety in surgery - years before police opened investigation into 40 deaths. W/ BBC Newsnight

thetimes.co.uk/article/royal-…

Politico’s great story confirms a tip PoliticsHome heard in September

Phenomenal kicker to this jonn elledge piece politicshome.com/news/article/t…

Greg Hands talks to Tom Scotson: Trade Department Would Not “Hesitate” To Revoke Arms Licences To Israel politicshome.com/news/article/t…

'The simple fact is that we have removed upwards of 50 candidates for complete inactivity and I know those who had been removed for disciplinary measures.

'Mr Cawkwell was clearly not one of those.' bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…

How the Tory Party became an 'unwhippable' operation

PoliticsHome piece on how MPs became addicted to the “political sidebar of shame” 👇
politicshome.com/news/article/t…

Not to get mad about things that happened 30 years ago, but how do you not just pick an England team with him keeping and Stewart opening

I peaked as a researcher when I visited Brooks's Club in London and found this 1783 wager in their archive.

What a lovely piece

This seems a more sensible response, on balance, than sending a photo of your bits to them

On music’s ChatGPT moment that appears to have gone largely unremarked.

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/music-has-ju…

I can’t describe how much I’ll miss this show

A discount on tuition fees (which he didn’t pay) as an inducement for conscription (which he didn’t do). Tough sell!

Defeat For Ben Houchen Is Rishi Sunak's Biggest Danger Zone politicshome.com/news/article/b…

If you thought last week’s focus group episode was a bit of a downer about the state of the country and its politics - this week’s one is about the positivity of getting involved in democracy, and as the old saying goes; don’t vote, can’t complain

Michael Gove reflecting on the Brexit years on Political Currency: “My single piece of advice to any future prime minister is never, ever have a referendum on anything… because in practice, they end up creating far more problems than they resolve in and of themselves.”