George Freeman’s leadership shenanigans

It seems that George Freeman has got his summer flip-flops in early. The (recently departed) science and innovation minister hasn’t had a great few weeks in the Commons recently. First, there was last month’s leadership vote in Boris Johnson in which Freeman initially refused to say which way he had voted. This was then followed by last week’s rather more successful coup against Johnson in which Freeman submitted a public letter of no confidence in the PM . He did not, however, make clear if he was resigning or not, sparking confusion and derision among bemused colleagues and hacks.

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Having announced that he had, in fact, resigned, Freeman then took to Twitter to bemoan his loss of office, sharing a series of flattering quotes from academics about his departure. Earlier today he stood up in the Commons to call for his old post to be bumped up to cabinet rank and declared wistfully that ‘I had looked forward to being at the Despatch Box on my 55th birthday.’ Many happy returns and all that George.

Fortunately though, our onetime innovations minister has come up with an ingenious solution to avoid ever losing office again. For, having nailed his colours to the Mordaunt mast –  lauding her in a 1,000 word article as the ‘one outstanding team player candidate’ – Freeman has now taken to publicly flattering Mordaunt’s rivals against whom she is running. Responding to Tom Tugendhat’s launch earlier today, Freeman gushed on Twitter that Mordaunt’s opponent is a ‘brilliant Foreign Secretary in-waiting’, sharing a clip from Tugendhat’s speech and describing it as a ‘great speech.’

First Mordaunt, now Tugendhat. How many other candidates can Freeman praise, in his bid to return as Britain’s science minister once more?