Lee Anderson calls on Ed Davey to resign over PO scandal
"Where is he?" came the shouts from the Tory benches pointing to the empty space on the Opposition seats normally filled by Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey.
Well, they may ask considering that he is at the centre of a political storm over the Post Office Horizon scandal and is being questioned for not doing his job as minister for the Post Office in 2012 when hundreds of sub-postmasters were being wrongly convicted of fraud they did not commit.
His response to Alan Bates in 2012 that a meeting over the issue "would serve no useful purpose" will haunt Davey to his political grave even though he later did meet Bates and others and claims he was "lied to on an industrial scale" by former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells and others. The fact is he did nothing to stop one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in modern British legal history.
In typically robust form, straight-talking Conservative Deputy Chairman Lee Anderson had waded straight in with the first question of the first PMQs of the year suggesting that as a politician who had "told more than 30 others to resign over mistakes" Davey should follow his own advice.
Davey's case has not helped that he has received ￡275,000 in payments from the legal company employed by the Post Office on the issue although the Lib Dems have stressed that they were for advice from a different ministerial portfolio he held in the Coalition government on energy and climate change.
Sir Ed had been allocated a question today in PMQs which made his absence all the more notable and it followed his failure to turn up for a statement on the scandal earlier this week. The Tories have smelt blood since his role in the affair came up in ITV's biopic Mr Bates vs the Post Office.
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READ MORE: Commons uproar as Lee Anderson tells Ed Davey to 'clear off' in brutal PMQs row
Rishi Sunak has announced a new package for the sub-postmasters (Image: PARLIAMENT)
The explanation from the Lib Dems is one which every parent will understand.
Party sources said that Sir Ed had stayed at home to care for his disabled son because his carer had taken ill.
Nobody should begrudge a father who puts the needs of his child first at a time when he is fighting to save his political career.
The timing though is deeply unfortunate for Davey who is in serious trouble and under a great deal of pressure to quit as Lib Dem leader.
It is also unfortunate for the Lib Dems in a year where they feel that they are in play for scores of seats across the south of England and in the North West.
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Lee Anderson started the first PMQs of the new year with a typically robust political attack (Image: Getty)
The issue for the Lib Dems is that their pool of MPs is very small with just 15 of them and the amount of talent is very shallow as a result. When you remove those who were leaders and booted out (Tim Farron) and those who do not want to lead then the options to replace Davey are very limited.
It would likely be a contest between Daisy Cooper (described as a fmale Nick Clegg), former journalist and special adviser Christine Jardine and the darling of the party's woke left Layla Moran. Neither would be as appealing to constituencies in the target seats of the south west and elsewhere.
The Conservatives who have the most to lose know this.
So while many MPs across the House will have sympathy for Davey's predicament as a parent today there is virtually no room for sentiment in politics, especially in the febrile atmosphere of PMQs in the Commons chamber.
British politics is often a blood sport where MPs will go for the kill of their political opponents.
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And the problem for Davey is that he knows this and is as ruthless in his attacks and demands as any other politician whatever the circumstance.
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Since April 2019 just on his Twitter account alone, Davey has demanded the resignation of 12 individuals - mostly Tory ministers but also others - on 31 occasions.
No wonder Lee Anderson went straight for the jugular in his first question and no wonder he was loudly cheered on by his fellow Conservative MPs.
There is a lot at stake over Davey clinging on not least the fate of potentially a hundred or more currently Tory seats.
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