Rasputin Destroys Himself

Theresa May might have expected to see her reputation, or what remains of it, take a battering as a result of the “Windrush Generation” fiasco, but would have been safe in the knowledge that her pals in our free and fearless press would cover for her, and the ruckus would soon blow over as soon as they had dredged up some minor misdemeanour committed by someone who lives across the road from Jeremy Corbyn.

But she had reckoned without the destructive power of her former éminence grise Nick “Rasputin” Timothy, not realising that if he could piss the wrong way when invited into the Downing Street tent, he could do at least as badly when invited by the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph to take hold of their megaphone. So it was that he pissed all the way from Buckingham Palace Road back to Downing Street this week.

Timothy told his adoring public that Ms May had opposed the infamous “Go Home” vans when in charge of the Home Office, and that she had curtailed the programme early. Sadly, the evidence of Operation Vaken was all too plain: the scheme had been quite deliberately thought through, and the pilot ran its full course, with no interruption. Moreover, Timothy was wrong that the pilot had started when his boss was on holiday.

That much was bad enough, but Rob Hutton of Bloomberg revealed that not only had Ms May known all about the “Go Home” vans, she did not think the campaign was tough enough! Then Adam Bienkov at Business Insider showed that, far from being out of the loop when on holiday, the then Home Secretary had personally intervened to “toughen up” the policy - while she was on that same holiday. Timothy was bust.

Problem was, by this time, so was the Prime Minister and party that he had intended to help by intervening. So it came to pass that he deleted his Twitter account, and in so doing launched a whole new comedy genre, typified by the response of David Whitley: “Nick Timothy's account has been deleted, but it is important to note that this wasn't in any way Nick Timothy's fault”. Others were quickly on the case.

One asked “Is he on holiday?” while another mused “Was he on holiday at the time?” and David Lewis provided the definitive answer: “Nick Timothy has not deleted his account. He has gone on holiday and the deletion has occurred without his knowledge”. But pride of place has to go to Bonnie Greer, who has waxed Shakespearian on the subject.

“Missing #NickTimothy on #Twitter? Just a reminder of where you can find him: he's a columnist for two of the Three ‘Weird Sisters’ of UK journalism: @Telegraph; @TheSun ‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair Hover through the fog and filthy air.’”

The Tory Party’s very own Rasputin has ended up destroying himself. The problem for his former boss is that he may have taken her down with him. What a complete clown.