HARRY COLE: Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill went to a Katherine Jenkins gig on election night

Freebies racked up by oh-so grand Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill suggest he was convinced Boris Johnson was going to win December’s General Election.

Whereas his predecessors always awaited exit polls steeled to deal with the vicissitudes of a hung Parliament, Sir Mark spent Election night at London’s Royal Albert Hall. 

He had been given two free VIP tickets to Welsh singer Katherine Jenkins’s Christmas concert, according to data published by the Cabinet Office.

No need to prepare for the possibility of Jeremy Corbyn as the new Prime Minister or for arm-wrestling about a coalition, it seems.

In February, the MoS revealed that Sir Mark’s annual expenses totalled £175,000, alongside his £205,000 salary. 

Now official figures show that as well as a £205- a-day limousine bill, he claimed £18,414 for journeys on planes or trains in just two months.

There has been disquiet about the overweening size of Three-Jobs Sir Mark’s empire – his roles as Cabinet Secretary, National Security Adviser and head of the Civil Service were previously done by three people.

How does he have time to indulge his leisure interests, such as a day in March at Cheltenham Races, attended by 150,000 people and said by scientists to have ‘accelerated the spread’ of coronavirus?

Boris Johnson made a private appeal to the Commons Speaker to use cavernous Westminster Hall as a ‘pop-up’ debating chamber as he scrambles to get Parliament running properly again. 

The two-metre rule means only 50 MPs can be in the Commons at once – nowhere near enough for the rowdy atmosphere Boris prefers for PMQs. But officials opposed the plan, not least due to the cost of lights, cameras and other equipment. 

Another delicate issue is that the 900-year-old hall must always be ready at eight hours’ notice for lying-in-state in the event of the death of a sovereign. 

Robert’s red-faced moment 

There were red faces all round after Conservative Ministers and MPs were despatched to the airwaves and Twittersphere to defend Dominic Cummings last week over his trip to the North East – but none more so than Robert Courts.

The MP for Witney, who was hastily lined up for an interview on BBC News, above, appears to have spent most of the lockdown basking in the glorious Oxfordshire countryside.

 You wait five months for a meeting of the National Security Council and then two come along in as many weeks. 

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that this sudden flurry of activity followed the MoS pointing out growing concern in Whitehall about the lack of top-level intelligence meetings…

It’s tough for a failed leader to return to the front bench under a new chief, but I hear Ed Miliband is doing all he can to make a splash. 

The Shadow Business Secretary (who has never done a day’s work in business) has insisted he has two advisers rather than the normal one. 

‘Twenty advisers would struggle to rebrand Red Ed,’ carps one party enemy. 

‘I will never forget the moment I lost my belief in the Conservative Party,’ raged novelist Anthony Horowitz in The Spectator magazine about the Dominic Cummings saga. 

‘Much, much worse than the incident itself has been the Government’s handling of it. Shamelessness – that’s what the Government now seems to promote.’ 

But his rant might make for an awkward Sunday lunch in the Horowitz household. 

Anthony’s son Cass is Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s tyro spin doctor.