Tory Bercow Hypocrisy

After former Commons Speaker John Bercow was found to have bullied staff, and had done so over a significant period of time, the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press was incandescent, especially given his less than wholehearted support for Brexit and his tendency to hold alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to account. The Daily Mail was especially righteous, and thus the hypocrisy.

Back in charge in the Northcliffe House bunker is the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, whose ability to bully, intimidate and indeed humiliate his staff is the stuff of legend. Taking their cue from this example, and especially after discovering that Bercow had joined the Labour Party in the meantime, Tories lined up to condemn him. And Labour.

Remember him? Resigned over bullying ...

Over-promoted Home Counties housewife Andrea Leadsom appeared on Murdoch broadcaster Times Radio and told what passes for an audience “Keir Starmer must expel John Bercow from the Labour Party. There's no doubt in my mind.....everyone who works and comes here must be treated with dignity and respect”. And so a problem entered.

... by, er, guess who?

As Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy noted, this put the Tories in one of those Very Difficult Positions. “And if Conservatives think Starmer should expel Bercow they must think Johnson should expel Patel?” One enterprising Tweeter added “I see the Bercow report was released ahead of the Gray report and is unredacted”.

The example of Priti Patel, inexplicably elevated to Home Secretary by Bozo, shows that some bullies are more acceptable than others. Philip Rutnam, who resigned as top Civil Servant at the Home Office over Ms Patel’s bullying, and won a significant settlement after talking legal action against his former employer, spelt out her shortcomings.

“As early as August 2019, the month after her appointment, she was advised that she must not shout and swear at staff. I advised her on a number of occasions between September 2019 and February 2020 about the need to treat staff with respect”. Ms Patel has also been shown to be a serial liar. She had been summoned home by Theresa May and sacked for effectively making up foreign policy on the hoof. And lying about it.

Yet her colleagues and the press excuse her behaviour. After a bullying probe concluded that she had done just that, the Murdoch Sun reported “Boris Johnson orders MPs to ‘form a square around The Prittster’”. Bozo “said the accusations that she shouted at staff fell down because the investigation said she was ‘legitimately frustrated’ at the poor performance of Civil Servants”. Bullshit. Ms Patel has also proved cruel and inept.

Jonathan Portes observed today “A concerted effort to excuse Patel/the government of the cruelty and incompetence of our treatment of Ukrainian refugees - by blaming [Home Office] civil servants”, while Open Democracy revealed that “Priti Patel ignored warnings that the Home Office contractor which told desperate Ukrainian refugees to wait weeks for visa appointments had the “sole focus” of making a profit”. More cruelty.

You can’t come down like the proverbial tonne of bricks on Bercow and let Ms Patel off. You deal with bullying, you deal with all bullying. If Bercow has his Parliamentary pass taken away for life, so should our Benidorm holiday rep Home Secretary. End of story.

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