Where’s Tracey? That was what was uppermost in the minds of every MP at departmental questions for digital, culture, media and sport. It was also the one question to which the culture secretary, Jeremy Wright, was unable to give a satisfactory answer. He did know she had been away in the US and wondered if maybe her red-eye flight back had been delayed or diverted to Paris.

A few Labour MPs with flight tracker apps on their phones were able to reassure him her plane had landed quite safely. “Oh,” said Wright. Perhaps, then, she had been caught up in traffic on the way in to London from Heathrow. The M4 could be hell in the mornings. In any case, could everyone stop making such a fuss about Tracey? He was in the Commons. Wasn’t that enough?

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It wasn’t. On a normal day, the non-appearance of Tracey Crouch, the minister for sport, at her own department’s questions would have raised few eyebrows. But overnight Crouch had become a story in her own right after it was reported she was threatening to resign over the government’s budget decision to delay by six months the reduction of the maximum stake from £100 to £2 on Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs). So MPs had been understandably curious to see if she was prepared to stand by the government’s policy reversal or to walk away with her integrity intact.

Wright’s discomfort was not eased by being forced back into the chamber just 20 minutes later to face an urgent question on FOBT. Twenty minutes during which it was being widely reported that Crouch was indeed back in London and had been seen going into a meeting with Julian Smith, the government’s chief whip. Something that appeared to be confirmed when Smith appeared in the chamber and summoned Wright to join him for what looked like a tense discussion behind the Speaker’s chair. Whatever was said, Wright returned to the dispatch box with the enthusiasm of someone about to face a firing squad.

Labour’s shadow culture secretary, Tom Watson, stepped forward to renew the attack. The government had promised to reduce the maximum stake in April next year. Why the change of mind and had the minister given any thought to those problem gamblers who might get further into debt or even kill themselves as a result of the delay? And while Wright was here, could he give any further information on Crouch’s whereabouts and immediate career prospects?

“The minister is doing a great job,” Wright mumbled. Though he was reluctant to give any firm details on how long she would continue to be doing a great job for. But hopefully, another half hour at least. For someone who is a former attorney general and is supposed to be one of the UK’s top legal minds, Wright often comes across as being almost devoid of both personality and intelligence. Not anyone’s first choice to represent them on a speeding charge.

Wright then turned his inconsiderable mind to defending the indefensible. Primarily himself. The opposition should be absolutely thrilled that Crouch hadn’t bothered to turn up because that meant they got him instead. And besides, the government hadn’t really done anything wrong because when it had said it would reduced FOBTs in April 2019 what it had really meant was it would do so in April 2020 so the reality was that the changes were being brought in six months earlier than planned.

This was too much even for the Tory benches and Wright soon found he was being beaten up by almost everyone. For Iain Duncan Smith, Wright was merely collateral damage in his ongoing war against Philip Hammond whom he suspects of trying to scupper Brexit. Kicking out at the budget was all the sweeter when he could do so from the rare comfort of the moral high ground. Not a vantage point he often enjoys. IDS simply suggested the government was lying. It didn’t care about problem gamblers and was just trying to maximise tax revenues for as long as possible.

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“No, no, no,” Wright insisted, by now unable to see that his best option was to stop digging, plead guilty and hope for a reduced sentence. Instead he tried a new tack. The government cared so much about problem gamblers that they wanted to let them carry on losing money they didn’t have for a while longer so that it could do further research into how much damage they were really doing to themselves.

The Speaker tried to bring proceedings to an early close on a technical knockout, but as Andrea Leadsom wasn’t yet in the chamber for the next session, he was obliged to let MPs carry on kicking Wright when he was down and out. The urgent question ended in near farce with several MPs continuing to ask “where’s Tracey?” and Wright looking increasingly desperate.

It wasn’t until much later in the day that we got to find out where Tracey had been. And what she had been doing. She had been avoiding her boss and ignoring the pleas of the chief whip not to embarrass the party. She had decided that her party was quite capable of embarrassing itself without any help from her. Tracey had chosen to put her principles before her career. She had proved herself to be an honourable woman by resigning. A sense of morality that Jeremy Wright couldn’t even begin to imagine.