Foreign Secretary in free fall

You might have thought the hire wire act of balancing Britain’s overseas interests would be keeping the Foreign Secretary fully occupied this summer. But now Dominic Raab has added skydiving to karate and boxing in his bag of tricks, having signed up to do a sponsored freefall for charity in October.

A letter has now gone out to Raab’s parliamentary colleagues, who are now eagerly queuing up to pay the Foreign Secretary to jump 15,000 feet out of a plane. Donors listed on the justgiving fundraising page include a ‘Rishi’ who writes ‘Great effort – good luck with the jump!’ and one Tobias E – presumably Tobias Ellwood, the select committee scourge of the Foreign Office.

Raab, a karate black belt and Pret connoisseur, is aiming to raise £20,000 for Shooting Star Children’s Hospices which cares for babies, children and young people born with life-limiting conditions and their families. The Esher and Walton MP has thus far managed 22 per cent of the target with £4,415 raised two months ahead of the deadline.