Poor Dom Raab. First he lost the Foreign Office and now he has to share his house with Liz Truss – the woman who replaced him in last month’s reshuffle. The demoted minister has had a torrid few months, with the fall of Kabul, his Whitehall office briefing against him and then an enforced move to the Ministry of Justice with the consolation prize of ‘Deputy Prime Minister’ – a title which now irritates him so much that he snaps at anyone who uses it to address him.
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Still, a loss of office isn’t the only thing on Raab’s mind in recent months. Ever since the shock Chesham and Amersham by-election result in June, Raab and other Tories in previously safe seats have nervously been eyeing up the threat of a Liberal Democrat resurgence. Raab’s majority in the ‘blue wall’ seat collapsed at the last election from 23,298 in 2017 to just 2,743 in 2019, with local Lib Dems hoping that his Esher and Walton constituency will be ripe for a ‘Portillo moment’ in 2023.
Outwardly,
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