As if the exhibition of panic and implicit guilt from Isabel Oakeshott on The Andy Marr Show (tm) were not enough evidence that Leave campaigners are starting to get jittery at the prospect of the referendum result being thrown into doubt, soon there was the inevitable intervention of London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, whose ability to make the wrong call is the stuff of legend.
Remember what Bozza said about the phone hacking scandal? That, he asserted, was “a load of codswallop cooked up by the Labour Party”. He claimed “It is complete balderdash. It is an inverted pyramid of piffle” when confronted with allegations of an affair with Petronella Wyatt. In both cases he was lying, as he was when he was sacked from his first job in journalism - at the Times. Bozza lying is an instant tell-tale.
So it might have been a good idea for someone to tell Bozza to keep schtum on the Brexit vote scandal, but no-one did so. As a result, out came the dead giveaway: “Observer/C4 story utterly ludicrous, #VoteLeave won fair & square - and legally. We are leaving the EU in a year and going global”. Gosh readers! Cripes! Beano Boris telling these great unwashed lefty types exactly where they get orf! Yikes!
And while many on the Leave side were shaking their heads and asking themselves if there could just be some way to shut him up, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon needed no assistance translating the Bozza bluster: “Someone’s rattled”.
it got worse: Dan Bloom of the Mirror was on hand to relay the news that other ministers did not share Bozza’s belief. “Boris isolated by his Cabinet colleagues”. And who might be isolating him? “David Davis: ‘It’s really a matter if there’s any truth in it at all for the Electoral Commission to investigate. That’s for them, not a minister to decide.’” Anyone else? “Jeremy Hunt: ‘It has to be something that the Electoral Commission decide’”.
Worse still, Bozza had no room to start calling out Channel 4 News when he was so reluctant to appear on it, as presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy was swift to point out. “Then come on #c4news and answer questions in the studio. You still haven’t once since becoming foreign secretary. And as for legality shouldn’t you leave that to the electoral commission?” Yeah, come and face Krish if you think you’re hard enough!
Will Bozza be appearing before the inquisition of Jon Snow any time soon? As if you need to ask. And there was even worse news for Bozza, and indeed for the whole of the Leave side, when one of their key players suddenly got cold feet over putting himself before the cameras. The BBC’s joe Lynam mused “It looks like Dominic Cummings either changed his mind about appearing on @SkyNews or had his mind changed for him”.
Cummings, as I observed yesterday, was quite full of himself on Friday afternoon. Now he’s keeping his head down, something which does not come naturally to him. It’s almost as if Carole Cadwalladr’s investigations really have turned up something serious.
Bozza never did take on board the adage attributed to Denis Thatcher: better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.
Just think:
ReplyDeleteThis proven liar and hypocrite is the minister responsible for M16 and its actions.
Gosh.
"minister responsible for M16" Sssh for goodness sake! They haven't told him.
ReplyDeleteRemember the 2015 General Election Expenses investigation?
ReplyDeleteRly
A Pedant Writes:
ReplyDeleteahem: The M16 was a US Vietnam-era rifle. The intelligence agency nominally under the Foreign Office is MI6.
I don't imagine they're at all keen on anyone telling Alex that he's responsible for – never mind in charge of – them.
Tony,
ReplyDeleteA typo well spotted.
Well done.
But gosh nevertheless.