Penny Mordaunt comes to Michelle Donelan’s defence

It looks like more bad press is headed Michelle Donelan’s way. The Science and Tech Secretary had to issue a humiliating apology on Tuesday and retract false accusations she made about an academic after not checking her facts properly. It also transpires that Donelan received legal advice about tweeting her letter of complaint before she made it public, though the government won’t say what exactly that advice was. But to make matters worse, Donelan is letting the taxpayer pick up the tab. She agreed to pay the damages, but it soon emerged that the Science, Innovation and Technology department would cover the costs — a sum of £15,000. Cue predictable outrage.

And now, to add insult to injury, Penny Mordaunt has made a quite baffling contribution to the saga. The Leader of the House has suggested that the public should be grateful that Michelle Donelan didn’t take her £16,000 redundancy payout when she left a former post of Education Secretary:

When the honourable lady was entitled to redundancy payments from being a Secretary of State, which was £16,000, she did not take that and handed it back to the department because it was the right thing to do.