Mark Harper is an honourable politician

This is a short story about Mark Harper MP, who is making headlines. These days Harper is probably best known as a backbench critic of Covid restrictions, but he once had a promising career as a minister, including a spell in David Cameron’s cabinet between 2015 to 2016.

But that career hit a bump in early 2014 when he quit his post as immigration minister. I was running the Telegraph’s political team at the time. Many ministerial resignations are unmemorable, but Harper’s sticks in the memory. He quit because he learned that a cleaner he paid to look after his London flat did not have legal permission to live and work in the UK. As immigration minister, he had helped strengthen requirements on employers and landlords to check the immigration status of workers and tenants. Given that, he checked on his own case and found himself wanting.

In other words, Harper had broken his own rules, so he quit.