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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/07/the-secret-to-avoiding-more-resignations-just-keep-adding-disasters
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| The secret to escaping resignations? Just add more disasters | The secret to escaping resignations? Just add more disasters |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| There’s safety in numbers. On any other day, in any other government, at least one cabinet minister could have been forced to resign. But with the Tories hovering just one grade below omnishambles, all jobs are now safe. To lose Michael Fallon may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose Priti Patel and Boris Johnson looks like a death wish. So the country is stuck with a confederacy of dunces. | There’s safety in numbers. On any other day, in any other government, at least one cabinet minister could have been forced to resign. But with the Tories hovering just one grade below omnishambles, all jobs are now safe. To lose Michael Fallon may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose Priti Patel and Boris Johnson looks like a death wish. So the country is stuck with a confederacy of dunces. |
| First in the Commons firing line, though, was David Davis. Or rather, he would have been, if he hadn’t made a point of being in Rome – just about the only good decision the Brexit secretary has made in recent months. So instead, his junior minister, Steve Baker, was left to answer the urgent question tabled by Labour’s shadow Brexit minister, Matthew Pennycook, on the timing of the release of the sectoral economic analyses. | First in the Commons firing line, though, was David Davis. Or rather, he would have been, if he hadn’t made a point of being in Rome – just about the only good decision the Brexit secretary has made in recent months. So instead, his junior minister, Steve Baker, was left to answer the urgent question tabled by Labour’s shadow Brexit minister, Matthew Pennycook, on the timing of the release of the sectoral economic analyses. |
| Baker began by saying there had been some misunderstanding. When Davis had previously said that there were 58 sectoral analyses, what he had really meant was that no such impact assessments existed. All there was were a few rough notes and newspaper clippings tucked away into 58 different ring-binders. Most of which was just colouring in. So it would take at least three weeks for the department to write something that could pass off as an impact assessment. | Baker began by saying there had been some misunderstanding. When Davis had previously said that there were 58 sectoral analyses, what he had really meant was that no such impact assessments existed. All there was were a few rough notes and newspaper clippings tucked away into 58 different ring-binders. Most of which was just colouring in. So it would take at least three weeks for the department to write something that could pass off as an impact assessment. |
| While a few tame Tories could quite understand that it was a matter of patriotic pride to be truly hopeless – if the the government didn’t know what its negotiating position was, it couldn’t give it away to the enemy – most MPs took a rather different view. The house had given a clear instruction to the government to hand over its homework and if all it had was a couple of Post-it notes, that’s what it wanted to see. Baker began to get snappy. He and Davis were as one. Tweedledum and Tweedledumber. The assessments both existed and didn’t exist. Metadata that was of national importance and too trivial to bother with. | While a few tame Tories could quite understand that it was a matter of patriotic pride to be truly hopeless – if the the government didn’t know what its negotiating position was, it couldn’t give it away to the enemy – most MPs took a rather different view. The house had given a clear instruction to the government to hand over its homework and if all it had was a couple of Post-it notes, that’s what it wanted to see. Baker began to get snappy. He and Davis were as one. Tweedledum and Tweedledumber. The assessments both existed and didn’t exist. Metadata that was of national importance and too trivial to bother with. |
| International trade minister Alistair Burt was also asked to play a duff hand, as Priti Patel had been hastily bundled on a plane to Uganda with Liam Fox. Lucky Uganda. Two idiots for the price of one, with Adam Werritty thrown in as hand luggage. Anything to get Priti out the way, after it turned out she had been doing a bit of freelancing as prime minister while she was on holiday in Israel, without bothering to tell either Theresa May or the foreign office. Burt, who is fundamentally a decent man, looked miserable as he catalogued Patel’s secret meetings with Benjamin Netanyahu in various water parks around Tel Aviv. | International trade minister Alistair Burt was also asked to play a duff hand, as Priti Patel had been hastily bundled on a plane to Uganda with Liam Fox. Lucky Uganda. Two idiots for the price of one, with Adam Werritty thrown in as hand luggage. Anything to get Priti out the way, after it turned out she had been doing a bit of freelancing as prime minister while she was on holiday in Israel, without bothering to tell either Theresa May or the foreign office. Burt, who is fundamentally a decent man, looked miserable as he catalogued Patel’s secret meetings with Benjamin Netanyahu in various water parks around Tel Aviv. |
| If Patel was guilty of anything, it was of being too conscientious, he explained. She just couldn’t resist the opportunity to make up government policy as she went along. And yes, it was a bit unfortunate that she had lied last week about who had known what and when about her trip and that she had made everyone, including herself, look like idiots. Not one Tory MP came to Patel’s defence, and when Labour MPs asked why she had not been sacked, Burt didn’t really have an answer. Rather than fire Patel for breaking the ministerial code, the weakened Maybot had chosen to rewrite the ministerial code. | If Patel was guilty of anything, it was of being too conscientious, he explained. She just couldn’t resist the opportunity to make up government policy as she went along. And yes, it was a bit unfortunate that she had lied last week about who had known what and when about her trip and that she had made everyone, including herself, look like idiots. Not one Tory MP came to Patel’s defence, and when Labour MPs asked why she had not been sacked, Burt didn’t really have an answer. Rather than fire Patel for breaking the ministerial code, the weakened Maybot had chosen to rewrite the ministerial code. |
| Boris Johnson didn’t have an answer either when many of the same MPs asked him the same question, though the foreign secretary at least had the decency to take the incoming in person. Though not the decency to offer more than a half-hearted apology – in the guise of a statement on Islamic State – for running the risk of extending the sentence of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British woman who was banged up in an Iranian jail, by failing to understand the details of her case. | Boris Johnson didn’t have an answer either when many of the same MPs asked him the same question, though the foreign secretary at least had the decency to take the incoming in person. Though not the decency to offer more than a half-hearted apology – in the guise of a statement on Islamic State – for running the risk of extending the sentence of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British woman who was banged up in an Iranian jail, by failing to understand the details of her case. |
| It was all fine, Boris burbled. He had phoned the Iranians and they had assured him that everything was fine. Who cared if he had got a bit muddled, which he hadn’t, because it was the official transcript of the foreign affairs select committee that was at fault, not him. Everything had turned out fine, so no harm done. People were making a huge fuss about nothing. And even if Zaghari-Ratcliffe could have got an extra five years, it wasn’t as if anyone had died. | It was all fine, Boris burbled. He had phoned the Iranians and they had assured him that everything was fine. Who cared if he had got a bit muddled, which he hadn’t, because it was the official transcript of the foreign affairs select committee that was at fault, not him. Everything had turned out fine, so no harm done. People were making a huge fuss about nothing. And even if Zaghari-Ratcliffe could have got an extra five years, it wasn’t as if anyone had died. |
| Like Patel, Boris had almost no defenders. Even on his own benches. Anna Soubry accused him of concentrating on his career rather than on his brief, while Yvette Cooper and others accused him of carelessness and a casual disregard for the truth. Too broken, too out of touch even to apologise, Boris huffed. He was certain he hadn’t done anything that required an apology, but if he had done then this would have to do. | Like Patel, Boris had almost no defenders. Even on his own benches. Anna Soubry accused him of concentrating on his career rather than on his brief, while Yvette Cooper and others accused him of carelessness and a casual disregard for the truth. Too broken, too out of touch even to apologise, Boris huffed. He was certain he hadn’t done anything that required an apology, but if he had done then this would have to do. |
| It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was the best anyone was getting. Boris never does contrition, and he was off the hook again. Saved not by his own bravura, but by the government’s own frailty. The Commons was still none the wiser as to just what it would take for a minister to resign. Though no doubt there was someone in cabinet at that very moment, just itching to push the envelope a little further. | It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was the best anyone was getting. Boris never does contrition, and he was off the hook again. Saved not by his own bravura, but by the government’s own frailty. The Commons was still none the wiser as to just what it would take for a minister to resign. Though no doubt there was someone in cabinet at that very moment, just itching to push the envelope a little further. |
| John Crace’s new book, I, Maybot, is published by Guardian Faber. To order a copy for £6.99, saving £3, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99. | John Crace’s new book, I, Maybot, is published by Guardian Faber. To order a copy for £6.99, saving £3, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99. |
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| The politics sketch | The politics sketch |
| Theresa May | Theresa May |
| Priti Patel | Priti Patel |
| Boris Johnson | Boris Johnson |
| David Davis | David Davis |
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