Gove Polecats’ Prime Time Stupidity

Labour’s shadow education spokesman Tristram Hunt has managed to energise the retinue of polecats willing to savage political opponents of Michael “Oiky” Gove to the extent that they spent yesterday making a spectacle of themselves, although one of them might have thought that he had got away with what is often known as “Doing a Joe Biden”. To no surprise, step forward the loathsome Toby Young.

Yes, "Oiky", your polecats

Tobes must have thought he was being terrible witty when he wrote “Judging from his car crash interview on Newsnight, Tristram Hunt was born with a silver foot in his mouth”. Gosh, how his adoring readers (Damian and James Delingbonkers) must have guffawed at that one! But this is not an original put-down, as aficionados of US Presidential campaigns know all too well.

At least he didn't crib from Neil Kinnock

At the 1988 Democratic National Convention, Ann Richards, later Governor of Texas, said of George Bush (senior) “Poor George, he can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth”. Tut tut, Tobes, cribbing your one-liners from a Democrat. But at least Young makes an effort, unlike head polecat Dominic Cummings, for whom the record was all too clearly stuck.

As Hunt faced his beloved boss in the Commons, Cummings – the main mover behind the @toryeducation Twitter feed – went on the attack: “One day @TristramHuntMP says he’s pro-Free Schools – then ‘dangerous experiment’. NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME, TRISTRAM”. We are not told what this “prime time” of which he talks is, but he talks about it rather a lot.

And just eight minutes later, he was off once more: “Has @TristramHuntMP checked his lawyers? Is he ready for the ECHR cases, judicial reviews? NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME, TRISTRAM”. As Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point. Another five minutes elapsed, and then ... you know the drill.

“Tristram ‘you’re all obsessed with me’ Hunt shows a lot about own character but no detail on policy. He isn’t ready for prime time” was Cummings’ judgment, with no need for the caps lock key this time. Note that Laura McInerney, as she often does, registered a dissenting opinion, calling “Oiky’s” line of attack “disgustingly personal”. No wonder Gove so readily hired Cummings.

Then, after the debate finished, the caps lock was back: “VERDICT: @TristramHuntMP vain, overconfident, too partisan, too conventional/predictable, not on top of details. NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME”. As if Hunt, Mil The Younger, or anyone else in the Labour Party gives a stuff what one of Gove’s polecats thinks.

But good to see that Cummings is making so much effort to justify all that taxpayer dosh he’s being bunged. He and Tobes make a magnificent double act. Magnificently stupid, inept and pointless, that is. No change there, then.