A curious rumour reaches my ear: that David Davis, former shadow home affairs secretary, could have his eye on an altogether different prize – chairmanship of the Treasury Select Committee.
Davis is about to chair a body called the Future of Banking Commission, set up to report to the next chancellor on how to produce a “socially useful” financial sector. It’s a far cry from his last beat of cops and robbers.
Certainly the next chair of the TSC will be a Tory. The most obvious candidate is the always impressive Michael Fallon, the current deputy chair.
The conventional wisdom is that Davis may want to return to the frontline of politics, if David Cameron can forgive him for the bizarre way in which he flounced out of his former job.
But I think the TSC rumour may have legs. Davis does have experience of finance having been chairman of the Public Accounts Committee for some time.
And if that’s not proof enough: He was spotted earlier this week reading a book by Joseph Stiglitz.
UPDATE
Davis tells me: “Not in a million years”. So that’s that then.
(We do promise the latest ‘news and gossip’ from Westminster….)
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey