Boris Bust-Up - The Silence Of Harry Cole

The Domestic involving London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his current partner Carrie Symonds has generated lots of feedback, much of it breaking down along strictly tribal lines. Many out there on the right are incandescent with rage that the Rotten Lefties™ at the Guardian were gifted the recording of what the Daily Mail so quaintly called a “fracas”. Most on the left are not.

Oo-er chaps! Yikes!

Still pretending to be a real journalist

But one of those out there on the right had previously been fiercely critical of Mark Field, the Tory MP unable to hold his Veuve Cliquot, who violently assaulted a peaceful woman protester who had interrupted Philip Hammond’s Mansion House speech. The odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, formerly tame gofer to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, and now at the Mail on Sunday, disapproved strongly.

Noting that Jeremy Hunt (the former Culture Secretary) had just squeaked past Michael “Oiky” Gove to join Bozza as one of the two names vying for Tory Party members’ attention in the race to become the next Prime Minister, and that Hunt was Field’s boss at the Foreign Office, Cole exclaimed “Jesus. Big test for @Jeremy_Hunt tonight, as his right hand man Mark Field goes full rocky on a peaceful protestor”.

This was a stance taking some courage, not a quality one normally associates with Master Cole: many of his followers were happy for Field to act Privileged Whilst Pissed. This may be because Cole had by now seen the video footage of the incident. “Videos like this lose elections. Wtf is wrong with them … This is now a major live story. @Jeremy_Hunt needs to get on front foot by Today programme. Burt’s bluster on Newsnight is not going to cut it”.

He was particularly severe on veteran Tory MP Peter Bottomley: after the PA’s Jennifer McKiernan noted Bottomley’s approval of Field’s violent outburst, he despaired “For goodness sake. Another Hunt ally defends rocky”. And in case anyone didn’t get that, he added “Watch the video. No gentleman can defend treating any woman like that. Period”.

Cole also RTd Piers Morgan - something he would never have done in Fawkes days - who had said simply “Men defending this should shut up. Women shouldn't be manhandled, literally, like this”. But then came Bozza’s bust-up with Ms Symonds.

This may be now ...

But, so what? Well, as Zelo Street regulars will no doubt recall, Master Cole and Ms Symonds were for some time an item. As she has done with Bozza, she prevailed upon Cole to shed a significant amount of excess personal baggage, which must have taken some effort in keeping him away from all those pies.

... but that was then

As Private Eye magazine noted recently, Cole and Ms Symonds remain on good terms. So where was his gentlemanly, nay, chivalrous leap to her defence as Brave Bozza refused her demand to “Get out of my flat”, instead demanding that she “get off my fucking laptop” after she had become incensed by his ruining her sofa by spilling red wine over it: “You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything”.

Took her a while to figure that one out, eh? But from Master Cole there was only silence. I’m sure it has nothing to do with his bosses at the MoS, and his contacts in the Tory Party, not taking kindly to his dissing The Great Man. I’ll just leave that one there.

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