Politics

Your ‘umble scribe likes to think he was properly brought up: polite, courteous, not swearing people, particularly women, and such like. As regards swearing, his sister has more than once revealed that when she and my late father were on a bus once, he admonished fellow passengers for swearing because women were present.

As regards swearing, step forward over-promoted former fireplace salesman “Sir” Gavin Alexander Williamson CBE MP, the dishonourable member for South Staffordshire who has been inexplicably elevated to cabinet rank (again!) as Minister of State without Portfolio, who appears to have been taught and abide by completely different standards of social conduct to those of your correspondent.

News has emerged over the weekend that Williamson sent ‘expletive-laden’ text messages to the then Conservative chief whip Wendy Morton all moaning about not being invited to attend the late queen’s funeral.

According to the messages published by today’s Sunday Times, Williamson accused Morton of exploiting the Queen’s death for political purposes, particularly as he was out of favour at the time with the English Empire’s shortest serving ever prime minister, one Elizabeth Mary Truss, now safely removed from high office and returned to the back benches.

The actual words quoted by the press reveal that Williamson has a fine command of monosyllabic swear words having their roots in Old English (which some still call Anglo-Saxon. Ed.), particularly ones beginning with f and s.

Not only did Williamson use foul language towards a woman, but this morning his cabinet colleague Oliver Dowden (also inexplicably honoured with a CBE like Williamson. Ed.)defended Williamson on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme, claiming Williamson’s offensive text messages were sent ‘in the heat of the moment‘.

I blame both of their sets of parents.

The disgraced former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, one Matthew John David Hancock, has lost the Conservative Party whip for agreeing to take part in trash TV show I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, The Guardian reports.

Tory chief whip Simon Hart is quoted as saying, “Following a conversation with Matt Hancock, I have considered the situation and believe this is a matter serious enough to warrant suspension of the whip with immediate effect”.

The dictionary definition of a celebrity is someone who is famous, especially in areas of entertainment such as films, music, writing, or sport. Unless politics has become a branch of the entertainment business, classifying Hancock as a celebrity is a tad far-fetched, even though politics has previously been described as show business for ugly people.

Your ‘umble scribe would contend that Hancock is no celebrity. However, what he does have is notoriety, particularly from his term of office as health secretary. In June 2021, after it was shown he had breached COVID-19 social distancing restrictions by kissing and embracing an aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his Whitehall office, Hancock resigned as Health Secretary, having been caught not only cheating on his wife, but also breaking his own social distancing rules. At the time Ms Coladangelo was a non-executive director at the Department of Health and Social Care. She was also an old college friend of Hancock’s from his time studying PPE at Exeter College, Oxford.

However, Ms Coladangelo’s appointment to the DHSC is not the only example of Hancock’s cronyism. There was the revelation of his ownership of shares in a family company used by the NHS, not to mention the award of an NHS contract to a neighbour. Furthermore, Hancock is the member of parliament for the West Suffolk constituency, which includes Newmarket, capital of the country’s horse-racing business. One of the reasons the pandemic took such a strong hold in the country was the delay in locking the country down, which allowed such superspreader events as the traditional March Cheltenham Festival to take place.

Of course, Hancock is not the first MP to be lured onto I’m A Celebrity. There was of course the notoriously useless Right Dishonourable Member for Mid-Bedfordshire, one Nadine Vanessa Dorries. Dorries also famously lost the whip for appearing on the show (where she famously ate ostrich anus in the bushtucker challenge. Ed.), apparently for committing the ultimate discourtesy of not informing the whips’ office of her absence from Halitosis Hall. However, this disciplinary action did not do much to dent her career prospects as she was subsequently and inexplicably elevated to the cabinet position of Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport by disgraced former alleged party-time prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

Come the next election, will the good burghers of West Suffolk decide that Hancock belongs on a show entitled He’s A Calamity… Get Him Out Of Here!?

Update 5/11/22: Hancock’s decision to take part in the show and leave his constituents without parliamentary representation while he earns a fat fee – rumoured in the media to be £350-400K – in addition to his £84,144 p.a. salary as an MP has not gone down well with some constituents, The Guardian reports.

Today the Mail on Sunday broke the news that the phone of one Mary Elizabeth Truss was hacked while she was Foreign Secretary before embarking on her disastrous seven weeks as the shortest serving prime minister of the English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom. Ed.). The general consensus is that the Russians were the culprits and they were able to obtain private messages between Truss and foreign officials, including some about the Ukraine war.

The security breach was discovered when Truss was campaigning for the Tory Party leadership in the summer, but was apparently hushed up on the orders of Truss’ predecessor, the equally useless disgraced alleged former party-time PM, one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who has since returned to his old habits of doing no work for his long-suffering constituents in Uxbridge & South Ruislip.

It is also claimed that private conversations between Truss and her equally useless (and rapidly dismissed, serving less time in office than his boss. Ed.) Chancer of the Exchequer Kamikwasi Kwarteng criticising Johnson were also amongst the information acquired by the hackers, leaving the Britannia Unhinged duo at risk of being blackmailed. One has to wonder how much kompromat the Kremlin has on Truss, Kwarteng and other present and former members of the alleged government.

Whilst all this is highly amusing to those of us on the left of the political spectrum, one disturbing aspect is the tone of the typical official .denial that a breach has occurred. According to The Guardian, a government spokesperson is reported as having stated the following:

The government has robust systems in place to protect against cyber threats. That includes regular security briefings for ministers, and advice on protecting their personal data and mitigating cyber threats.

Robust is another of those weasel words and stock phrases trotted out by officialdom when its shortcomings have been exposed.

The adjective has two dictionary definitions, depending upon whether people/animals or objects/systems are involved:

(of a person or animal) strong and healthy: and
(of an object or system) strong and unlikely to break or fail.

The only comment your ‘umble scribe can make on that is that the security breach would not have occurred had the government’s systems been robust enough, besides adding that if security is a major concern, Suella ‘Leaky Sue’ Braverman would not have been re-appointed as Home Secretary by this month’s Prime Minister only 6 days after she had been sacked by Ms Truss for a major security breach by using a personal – not official – email account to send privileged government information to a right-wing Tory MP and accidentally copying the message to another MP’s aide, who alerted Number 10.