TheTimes8April2020

the times | Wednesday April 8 2020 2GM 9

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government is exploring technological

options with the parliamentary author-

ities, if they are needed, in readiness for

parliament’s return.”

Several senior ministers including

Michael Gove and Matt Hancock have

been forced to self-isolate since parlia-

ment last met, and the prime minister

remains in hospital.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons

Speaker, appeared to concede MPs

would not go back to Westminster after

the Easter recess, saying: “I really hope

we can return to work virtually and

safely after April 21, subject to the

advice of Public Health England.”

The first online meeting of the House

of Commons Commission, the manag-

ing body, was held on Monday. The

commission has enlisted digital,

broadcasting and procedural specialists

to finalise arrangements.

One parliamentary source raised the

prospect that Westminster could run a

“reduced service” at least until June,

pointing out that both houses are

scheduled to take frequent breaks

before then anyway with the May bank

holidays and Whitsun recess. However,

a government official told The Times:

“Ministers and MPs are determined for

parliament to fulfil its scrutinising and

legislating role from April 21 onwards.”

The government is reluctant to intro-

duce more structural reforms, such as

electronic voting, out of fear that such

changes could be difficult to undo.

Two hundred peers, many of them

old and vulnerable, have written to the

leader of the Lords in support of using

Zoom “or similar audio-visual techno-

logy” for their work. “In the months

ahead the British public will face chal-

lenges like never before and they will

expect us to show leadership and fulfil

our role as parliamentarians,” they

wrote to Baroness Evans of Bowes Park.

Neil Ferguson, the Imperial College

scientist whose research precipitated

the lockdown and who has tested

positive for the virus, has said: “There is

a lot of Covid-19 in Westminster.”

A volunteer facing a 200-mile trip

through gangland territory in Hondu-

ras to reach her flight home is among

thousands of Britons stranded abroad.

Freya Madeley, 20, had been volun-

teering as an English teacher in a rural

town in the north of the Central Amer-

ican country.

The British embassy has secured a

seat on a Swiss flight to Zurich tomor-

row and will provide her with an official

safe passage letter to get to the airport.

However, her family, from Nail-

sworth, near Stroud in Gloucestershire,

say the five-hour taxi ride to the capital,

Tegucigalpa, is too dangerous. “She’s

scared, she’s nervous,” said her mother

Maria, 50, a teacher. “Food is getting

scarce... there is a complete lockdown

with gangs and police trying to control

News

Ally chosen because he

was rock solid on Brexit

to school and life,” he said last year.

“There were strong role models,

camaraderie and an ethos of respect. I

take the discipline and focus I learnt

from sport into my professional life.”

One political aide who has worked

with him said that his background had

shaped his politics. “On the one hand

he is a typical bright suburban gram-

mar school kid. But he doesn’t come

from a background of loads of money,

and graft means a lot to him.”

Within Westminster, however, Mr

Raab has developed a reputation for

being cold or even abrupt. Unlike Mr

Johnson and Mr Gove, he is not partic-

ularly “clubbable” and is seen as a hard

taskmaster.

A former diary secretary was secretly

recorded by a newspaper in 2018 saying

that Mr Raab was “difficult” to work for,

“dismissive of women” and demanded

exactly the same lunch every day from

Pret a Manger.

“He needs loosening up. He’s very

uptight,” she told the Mirror. “He has

the same baguette with the same

smoothie with a pot of fruit everyday.

It’s the Dom Raab Special.”

Another former staff member said

that the characterisation was unfair.

“I’ve never thought of him as cold and

in private away from the office he is a

totally different person,” they said. “If

he is going to a meeting he expects

everyone to... know what they are talk-

ing about. If it’s clear that they don’t he’s

not afraid to cancel the meeting and say

let’s do this again when we know what’s

going on. Some people take that as cold,

but it’s not.”

His new position is likely to lead to

tensions with other senior ministers,

and Mr Gove in particular.

Early in his career Mr Raab was seen

as politically close to Mr Gove, now the

minister for the Cabinet Office, for

whom he worked as a junior minister in

the justice department during David

Cameron’s premiership.

They were on the same side in the

Vote Leave referendum, and in its after-

math Mr Raab switched his support in

the 2016 Tory leadership race to Mr

Gove after Mr Johnson dropped out.

But relations between the two were

damaged in the campaign last year to

replace Theresa May when Mr Gove

suspected that one of Mr Raab’s aides

had leaked details of his cocaine “con-

fession”, which derailed his campaign.

“It would be fair to say that they are

no longer the best of friends,” said one

senior Tory who knows them both.

“But I think they both know they need

to work together.”

Steven Swinford, Lucy Fisher

Oliver Wright

Cabinet ‘has

command over

nuclear arsenal’

Lucy Fisher Defence Editor

Dominic Raab and the cabinet

have the “authority and ability” to

deploy Britain’s nuclear deterrent in

the prime minister’s absence,

Downing Street has said.

The question arose yesterday over

who is in charge of national security,

including the potential use of

Trident, while Boris Johnson is in

intensive care.

Tobias Ellwood, Tory chairman of

the Commons defence select

committee, said on Twitter: “It is

important to have 100 per cent

clarity as to where responsibility for

security decisions lies. We must

anticipate adversaries attempting to

exploit any perceived weakness.”

Asked during a No 10 press

briefing to say who presided over

Britain’s nuclear deterrent, Mr

Johnson’s spokesman said: “The first

secretary of state and the cabinet

have the authority and ability to

respond in [his] absence.”

Mr Raab was made first secretary

of state — and Mr Johnson’s de facto

deputy — last July when he was

appointed foreign secretary. The

spokesman added: “The UK has an

existing, robust national security

architecture, including the national

security council, which is designed

to be resilient and able to operate

under different circumstances.”

Each prime minister chooses two

or three deputies to take command

of the nuclear deterrent in the event

that the prime minister is

incapacitated, according to The

Silent Deep, a 2015 history of the

Royal Navy submarine service.

The chief of the defence staff, the

head of the armed forces, and the

first sea lord, the head of the Navy,

are closely involved with briefing the

political decision-makers.

Admiral Lord West of Spithead, a

former first sea lord, wished Mr

Johnson a swift recovery yesterday,

but stressed that his absence would

not disrupt Operation Relentless,

the continuous-at-sea deterrent.

STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA; ANDREW PARSONS/I-IMAGES

Briton stranded on wrong side of gangs

it. She hasn’t got much local currency.

She’s basically completely stuck.”

Ms Madeley, below, urged the gov-

ernment to arrange a repatriation flight

for her and other Britons from

Ramón Villeda Morales air-

port about 20 miles from

the school she worked at.

Last week the Foreign

Office launched a £

million operation to

charter flights from

destinations where

commercial routes

have been severed, but

demand appears to be out-

stripping supply. Flights will

operate this week from the Phil-

ippines, South Africa, Nepal and India.

In Goa, Lesley Murray, 61, whose

husband Ray, 67, died of pneumonia

after developing symptoms of Covid-19,

is being forced to cremate him on a fu-

neral pyre because of travel restric-

tions. Mrs Murray, of Worsley, Greater

Manchester, was told it was unlikely she

could repatriate his body on one of

three flights chartered by the

UK government this week.

“It has been the worst

experience of my life,”

she told The Times.

Shekhar Sharma, 42,

from London, is stuck in

Delhi. He paid £581 for a

rescue flight but was told

it only gets him on a wait-

ing list. He said: “The UK

seems to be the last country to

be trying to bring people back.”

A spokeswoman for the Foreign and

Commonwealth Office said: “We’ll

continue working around the clock to

bring people home.”

Neil Johnston, Hugh Tomlinson

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Aspokeswom

Dominic Raab was made first secretary

of state by Boris Johnson because he

offered his “unconditional” support

during the Tory leadership contest and

was considered “rock solid” on Brexit.

Mr Raab was Mr Johnson’s main

Eurosceptic rival during the contest in

June last year but was eliminated in the

second round of voting. On the evening

of his elimination he told Mr Johnson

that he had his full support and made

clear that he was not asking for any cab-

inet job in exchange for his backing.

Mr Johnson also believed that Mr

Raab was “rock solid” on Brexit and

would take Britain out of the EU if he

became incapacitated.

By contrast, Michael Gove, who was

knocked out in the penultimate round

of voting, did not directly endorse Mr

Johnson. He said instead that both Mr

Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, the final

two candidates, would make “great

prime ministers”.

“Boris liked the way he just came

right out and backed him,” an ally of Mr

Johnson said of the foreign secretary.

“Dom is also popular with the Vote

Leave crew who are in Downing Street.

“There’s also another reason: Dom is

rock solid on Brexit. The thinking was

that if someone had to take on the

prime minister’s role they had to be

clear on Brexit.”

Mr Johnson also distrusted Mr Gove

after he sabotaged his campaign for the

Conservative leadership in 2016. “Bo-

ris never fully forgave Michael Gove

for betraying him in 2016. The ques-

tion was more how Michael ended up

with such a senior cabinet position. It is

a credit to him that he got so much,

given what had happened before.”

Mr Raab’s role deputising for Mr

Johnson caps a remarkable ascent. The

father of two, 46, who is married to a

Brazilian marketing executive called

Erika, has just one year of cabinet expe-

rience behind him.

A former lawyer, he was an adviser to

David Davis while the Conservatives

were in opposition before becoming an

MP himself in 2010. He holds a black

belt in karate and is a former member of

the British squad for the martial art.

Mr Raab has said that karate helped

him cope with the premature death of

his father, Peter, who fled to Britain

from Czechoslovakia at the age of six to

escape the Nazis. Mr Raab was only 12

when his father died of cancer.

“Sport helped restore my confidence,

and that hugely benefited my attitude