The events of yesterday seem to indicate that at least four of the Ministers currently serving the Government and a Tory Vice Chair are incapable of making good or even honest decisions. My blog from yesterday relates to the decision taken on Tuesday by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select Committee to oppose the proposed appointment of Tina Stowell as the new Chair of the Charity Commission. The letter which can be found here from the committee pulls no punches and is well worth a read. Yet despite this Matt Hancock (top left corner) went ahead and appointed Ms Stowell as if nothing had been written to him. All such appointments need to go through a scrutiny process and of course the Government can overrule the views of select Committees, but as Damien Collins writes, this is the first time a Chair of the Commission has been opposed and for Hancock to simply ignore the views of the eleven members, five Conservative, five Labour and one SNP strikes at the very heart of the credibility of the Government. The rejection of their unanimous opposition to this appointment when the Government has such a small majority is surely a major threat to the Government and of course Tina Stowell cannot ignore the letter either which will always be on public record.

Then at lunchtime yesterday Andrew Neil interviewed Steve Baker MP (top centre) who is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. The point of the interview as shown in this clip was to try to reveal how the lies regarding Jeremy Corbyn had become accepted and then spread by two other Ministers and one senior Tory. The truth is the claim that Corbyn met with a Czech spy have been disproven due to evidence of where he was on the day in question, but this emerged after people involved in the Czech Government at the time of the meeting that was claimed, made it clear that the claims of his meeting with a spy were lies. Bearing in mind his role is as a negotiating Minister, Steve Baker failed miserably to defend the truth and innocence of Corbyn but he also failed to handle the interview at all well. The false accusations spread by his colleagues include the claim by Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary (top right) who claimed that Corbyn has betrayed the nation, then there was a comparison to Philby by Ben Wallace (bottom right) the Minister of State for Security and Economic Crime “Jeremy has been interested in foreign policy issues his entire political career’ – Labour MP Louis Haigh – yup so was Kim Philby.” A similar but much more direct accusation was made by the Conservative Vice Chair for youth, Ben Bradley MP who suggested that Corbyn had sold secrets to communists.

With five senior Tories all showing themselves incapable of behaving in a credible manner, four of whom are Ministers, surely the clock is ticking in a countdown to a Governmental collapse?