Important story from FOI wizard George Greenwood

The FCDO is refusing to say whether David Cameron has recused himself from parts of his foreign secretary role because of conflicts of interest

Read about his lobbying for China-backed Port City Colombo: politico.eu/article/the-sm…

Remarkable stat from this Anne Jenkin piece: 20 male Conservative MPs have been suspended since the last election

thetimes.co.uk/article/37db97…

Fuelling up ...

So happy to have run my first marathon today in 4 hrs 55 mins!

The crowds were amazing — especially my friends whose incredible support helped me do it under 5 hours 🥰

Mark Menzies made the list as one of our 'frequent flyer' MPs, racking up £70,800 worth of freebie trips since he entered parliament in 2010

Since the story was published he added a £6k trip to Doha politico.eu/article/freque…

Grant Shapps on Menzies to Times Radio: 'My understanding is that there was some further information yesterday and in light of what that was there was a conversation in which the whip was removed'

'There is potentially somebody who is quite troubled in the mix here'

Revealed: Tory MP allegedly demanded campaign cash to pay ‘bad people’

thetimes.co.uk/article/28f948…

Interesting that Lee Rowley, Alex Burghart and Julia Lopez were all on Badenoch's leadership campaign team...

Kemi Badenoch announces she is going to vote against Rishi Sunak's anti-smoking bill

And Ben Quinn revealed earlier that Penny Mordaunt is considering voting against it too

As it happens, they are the two most commonly mentioned potential Tory leadership candidates

Exc. Penny Mordaunt among ministers wavering over whether to support Sunak's generational smoking ban.
theguardian.com/politics/2024/…

NEW - Bambos Charalambous has had his suspension from Labour lifted after a 10-month-long investigation did not uphold a complaint against him

theguardian.com/politics/2024/…

NEW: Labour has called for an investigation into the prosecution of unpaid carers who unwittingly breached earnings rules by few pounds a week

Three former secretaries of state — Iain Duncan Smith, Alan Johnson and David Blunkett — have raised concerns

theguardian.com/society/2024/a…

Important journalism from my colleagues this week Patrick Butler Josh Halliday et al who have uncovered the scandalous prosecution of unpaid carers.

Now Rishi Sunak is under pressure from former DWP secretaries to launch an inquiry 👇
theguardian.com/society/2024/a…

Exclusive.

The government spent more than £23k on legal services related to Michelle Donelan’s letter to UK Research and Innovation about members of an advisory panel, bringing the total cost of the incident to the government & UKRI to more than £60k.

researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-pol…