Much of the coverage of Suella Braverman’s extraordinary column in today’s Times has focused on the conflict between the Home Secretary’s strident attack on the Metropolitan Police and the Prime Minister’s own statement expressing confidence in them just hours earlier.
It is unclear to what extent, if at all, her column was authorised by Number 10. Allies of the Home Secretary say that Downing Street saw it before publication but they do not say whether the PM personally authorised it. Sunak has so far declined to comment at all.
However, whatever the truth, this strikes me as entirely secondary to the substance of the Home Secretary’s words and what it says about the deeply dangerous direction that both Braverman and Rishi Sunak are now taking us in.
Here’s why.