Eric Pickles’ blunt select committee appearance will do little to ease Boris Johnson’s Greensill worries
The prime minister is spoiled for choice. Last month almost no one had heard of Greensill Capital and everyone had been doing their best to forget David Cameron. Now there isn’t just one ongoing inquiry into government lobbying and Tory cronyism, but six. Though by the time you read this we could be into double figures. One of which is being conducted by the public administration and constitutional affairs committee (Pacac) that just happened to be meeting on Thursday morning to hear evidence from Eric Pickles, chair of the advisory committee on business appointments (Acoba).
The Pacac chair, William Wragg, is generally one of parliament’s more forgettable characters, but with his committee unwittingly finding itself the centre of attention, he was determined to make the most of his time in the sun. His inquiry would be carried out “without fear or favour” he began, which sounded more like a subconscious admission that fear and favour were his default position than a serious warning shot to those whom his committee would be investigating. Still, it was a start, I suppose and there are braver souls on the committee than Wragg.
