opponents but some of the people privately are asking why rishi sunak didn t simply sack dominic raab rather than allowing to resign on his own terms. i think also for the future rishi sunak is saying we have to take a look at this whole process, the complaints process at the heart of government. you had that brief interview with the main union civil servants and what they have been arguing all along is the complaints procedure is inadequate and that rishi sunak should have addressed this earlier and make sure there was an independent process, not one down to his own judgment. from dominic raab plasma point of view he is not going quietly so that is potentially a problem for the prime minister. he says he continues to support the prime minister but is making a lot of noise about some of the allegations against him and he will be pointing at the more
minister without portfolio in the cabinet at the time, he had to resign because a slew of bullying allegations against him. nadhim zahawi, the tory chairman, he had to just like he was sacked, i beg your pardon, because he didn t declare that he had paid a tax bill when he was chancellor, he bade that to hmrc, extremely controversial because it didn t tell the prime minister and he seems to have broken the ministerial code as a result. so integrity is something that rishi sunak is going to have to test for himself and because of that whatever decision he makes will bejudged against those words that he delivered outside downing street. i think that makes it hard to see how, if there is damning evidence against dominic raab, it makes it hard to see how he could just dismiss that and allow mr raab to stay in a job. but, the other thing he has to weigh up but, the other thing he has to weigh up is how close the relationship is,
exonerate mr raab and mr sunak will have been shown to have exercised good judgment. but of course the downside is that maybe that s not the case. i think the other reason why mr raab. sorry, mr sunak is somewhat in a difficult place on this is that one of the hopes that the conservative party have for trying to improve their position in the opinion polls, they are still about 17 points behind labour, and local elections coming up in a couple of weeks, has rested very much on mr sunak s personal popularity. he is still more popular than his party. there are hopes that by leading a competent, effective and honest government, that mr sunak might be able to get his party back out of the electoral doldrums. if indeed he is forced to sack mr raab, then this will be used against him by the opposition to suggest that actually mr sunak is no cleaner than some of his predecessors when it comes to appointing friends to office.
terms of inquiry, five months, the terms of reference did say that this report should be done expediently. why do you think it has taken so long? i think it has been said that they have been a couple of iterations going back and forth. it does involve a certain amount of time. but there is a suspicion that ministers keep these things in the long grass, but the day has come, the results have come back and now rishi sunak has to do something decisive and quite painfulfor him because dominic raab is a very staunch supporter of his leadership campaign. ithink staunch supporter of his leadership campaign. i think it is the interest of the government here. i think rishi sunak is not in a particular strong place himself. he was the right hand man to borisjohnson, he broke the law, he too was dealing just like he appointed suella
only then for mr raab to put him back into his cabinet, put him back into the position of deputy first minister, despite the fact that there were already claims being made about the ethics of the way mr raab dealt with civil servants in his previous roles as a minister. so to that extent at least, mr sunak in a sense was repaying a debt, but in so doing, made a pretty important call given that one of the other things that mr sunak were saying when he became prime minister was that he was determined to lead a government that was professional, acted with integrity, etc, and some people suggested that maybe be reappointing mr raab would potentially compromise the clarity of that objective. now we have to wait and see what the report says, and may be the report will entirely