Caroline Nokes – what a piece of work.

She tried to bluff Home Affairs Select Committee chair Yvette Cooper that she didn’t have the relevant information to deal with a case in which serious defects had been discovered in accommodation for seven asylum-seeking mothers with young children. The house was infested with vermin.

Here’s how the conversation unfolded:

“You didn’t need telepathy; all you needed was a telephone.” I’m no fan of Ms Cooper, but she was absolutely right there.

Ms Nokes’s response – that she “would be very pleased” to receive the information – was belied by her icy expression and body language.

And when Ms Cooper asked, “Might you not have wanted to make that call yourself rather than leaving it for us to do in this public way?” it was telling that Ms Nokes paused for a long time before adding: “I think that is a conversation I need to have with my officials.”

I think we can all tell what that conversation was going to be.

It wasn’t going to be about them failing to get the information she needed to help asylum-seeking mothers.

It was going to be about the fact that Ms Nokes had been made to look a fool in public.

She doesn’t care about those mothers, their children, or the rodent-infested house to which they have been banished.

She didn’t show the slightest interest in their plight, or in helping them out of it.

If she had been interested in such matters, then the problem would have been solved months ago (a damning report had been issued in July).

Remember: This is the Tory minister who defended a policy to accelerate the deportation of hunger-striking women at Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre.

This is the attitude typical of Conservative ministers in Theresa May’s government.

Their concern is for their own advancement – not for the provision of a service to the public.

They take after their leader in that respect.

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