If Raab Is Heartbroken Over Child Poverty, Why Isn't He Doing Anything About It?

My podcast partner Rory Stewart is full of surprises. In the new episode out today, the first based purely on questions from listeners, the former Tory cabinet minister came to the defence of Dominic Raab, saying that unlike his boss, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary was at least honest.

- Alastair Campbell

His supporting evidence was that of all the contenders in the race to replace Theresa May, Raab was alone in admitting that the Brexit timetable being offered by Boris Johnson and all the others bar Stewart was utterly unrealistic and would not be met. Fair enough. He was right about that.

Stewart also said - though I have my own Foreign Office sources who paint a different picture - that whilst Raab accepts he should not have stayed on holiday when the chaotic retreat from Afghanistan was sprung on us by the Americans, this was out of character because if anything he works too hard, is too much of a micromanager. Again, fair enough.

I like people who stick up for people under attack. We all need them from time to time. But so far as I am concerned both of Stewart's observations confirm two things I have long thought about.

First, that Raab was always much more of a committed Brexiteer than the opportunist Johnson, and that his messaging about Brexit was all about getting it done whatever the cost, the chaos or the consequences, plenty of which we are seeing in ever larger quantities right now. Don't forget he was one of those who put his name to the Britannia Unchained vision of a low tax, low regulation, low rights Britain which for some is what Brexit was always about.