Give Trump the Nobel Prize, Tory peer pleads

You can be forgiven for not having heard of Conservative peer Aamer Sarfraz – the former Tory donor and treasurer turned lawmaker-for-life is not one of the most engaged members of the red benches.

The 43-year-old, handed a seat in the Lords by Boris Johnson in 2020 after chairing the Business and Entrepreneurs’ Forum, a £3,000-a-year club for Tory-supporting business leaders, has only spoken in the House 38 times in five years, the most recent being last summer. And he has only just submitted his seventh ever written question to ministers.

But what a question! Earlier this month he wrote to ministers to ask whether the government “would support the nomination of President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his role in averting war between India and Pakistan”.

Alas for Sarfraz, the government declined to back his bid, although not on the entirely reasonable basis that the cooling of hostilities had absolutely nothing to do with the US president, who had shown his customary grasp of geopolitics by claiming the tensions between the two countries went back “a thousand years”.

Rather, Foreign Office minister Jenny Chapman wrote back that “the award of the Nobel Peace Prize is a matter for the Nobel committee, and not for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office”.

A shame, then. But at least Sarfraz can console himself he’s unlikely to have any troubles with immigration officials next time he’s heading Stateside!