While the adverse comment being passed on Culture Secretary
Maria Miller crosses the political divide this morning, with the Mail On Sunday and Observer both suggesting that Tory
voters want her to go, and that she is in
line to be demoted or even fired in an upcoming cabinet reshuffle, the MP
for Basingstoke needs all the support she can get.
(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014
Sadly, there was precious
little of that support on view this morning, with even cabinet colleague
Iain Duncan Cough being rather lukewarm on The
Andy Marr Show (tm). Wasn’t there any support for Ms Miller out there?
Well, yes there was, but only of the kind that is highly likely to move her
ever closer to the exit door, because it came from former Tory MP Louise
Mensch.
Now representing the distant seat of Manhattan Upmarket, Ms
Mensch lost no time in going in to bat for the beleaguered Minister. “Maria did practically nothing wrong and
Telegraph misrepresented; doorstepped her disabled Dad” she told,
submerging a valid point – the doorstepping of an elderly relative – under the
implicit admission that Ms Miller had indeed done something wrong.
Former England rugby stalwart Brian Moore was unimpressed
with the “Practically nothing wrong”
concept. “Practically nothing wrong –
apart from fiddle her expenses, obstruct the enquiry and have her PR make
veiled threats” he corrected. The obstruction aspect is another minus point
for the Minister.
Moore then deployed what Bill McLaren used to call a “crunching tackle” as he pulled Ms Mensch
up sharpish with “you write for a News
[International] paper who doorstep people
all the time – including me twice”. That’s another point well made: the
Murdoch press tend not to be fussed who gets on the wrong end of their less
than totally ethical behaviour.
But Ms Mensch was having nothing of it. The saintly Maria
had done nothing deliberately, she asserted: “a very minor amount of money spread over many years and claimed in
error”. So not only is £45,000 “very
minor”, but A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away. And “It’s the behaviour of the Independent Standards Commissioner that was
wrong in the extreme”. Yes, let’s shoot the messenger.
In the meantime, the MoS
has got hold of a former Miller campaign organiser to tell that he
was so appalled by her behaviour during the 2005 General Election campaign
that he voted for her Labour opponent. So it looks as though Ms Mensch has once
again put herself firmly on the losing side.
Just how much of this
success can the former Corby and East Northants MP manage before Rupe decides
to get himself a more credible pundit?
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