Opportunistic MPs are wrong to think they’ll become Prime Minister by thwarting Brexit
ALL MPs have one thing in common. They all think that one day the nation will call and, by some freakish chain of events, they might end up living in No10.
But rarely have so many bizarre bids for Downing Street occurred in the same week.
This week started with the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas’s latest bonkers proposal. This is that what is needed is a cabinet of national unity. Led by her, naturally. And consisting solely of women.
This is because, according to Lucas, women “bring a different perspective to crises” and “are able to reach out to those they disagree with”.
There is a lot to dispute in that. But let me just mention that on the only occasion I appeared with Ms Lucas (on a BBC panel), she made no effort to reach out to me — someone she certainly disagrees with.
Indeed, I found her one of the most unpleasant politicians of either sex I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.
Of course, what she really means is that her all-women cabinet — who, surprise surprise, just happened to share Ms Lucas’ hard-line opposition to Brexit — would reach out to those they agree with.
Because she and her fellow Remainiacs are right and those of us who voted for Brexit are wrong. “Criticise this bold plan and you’re a misogynist” was the subtext. Groan.
STRANGEST WEEK
In any case, her dash for No10 stalled. It was not helped by the fact she did the political equivalent of stepping on a rake when it was quickly pointed out to her no “women of colour” had made it on to her proposed cabinet list. Oh, Caroline!
Yet her bigger problem was a democratic one. For outside of a very small number of vegans on the south coast, there is no mandate to put the only MP for the Green Party — which took a 1.6 per cent share of the vote in 2017 — in No10.
Fast forward a couple of days and it was Jeremy Corbyn’s turn. On Thursday, the Labour leader insisted that only he has a mandate to lead the country.
It is an interesting interpretation of events. Like a football team insisting that although they came second in the game, this only goes to show that only they are truly qualified to go through to the next round.
Corbyn has spent this week begging to be made Prime Minister ‘temporarily’ in order to stop a No-Deal Brexit.
And what reason is there to think Corbyn wouldn’t hand back the keys as soon as he’d finished shafting the nation?
The strangest of all in this week’s Game Of Moans is the behaviour of some Tory MPs
Douglas Murray
We all know him to be a man of deep principle. Jeremy is so committed to the EU that he spent his political career opposed to it.
He was then so dedicated to fighting for ‘Remain’ that he went on holiday during the referendum campaign. Again, like Lucas, his bid was more pathetic opportunism.
A proposal designed more for the like-farming virtue signalling idiots on Twitter than the health of the nation (more people on the platform fancied Gary Lineker to be temporary PM than Corbyn — according to one of those tedious polls — as it turned out.) Oh, Jeremy!
But perhaps the strangest of all in this week’s Game Of Moans is the behaviour of some Tory MPs.
Last night, it was revealed that Ken Clarke was prepared to become caretaker PM if the nation called on him.
Or if a cabal of MPs called, at least. The former Chancellor was said to be willing to govern alongside Labour’s Harriet Harman in a ‘cabinet of national unity’ that is probably the best way imaginable to tear a country apart.
DASH FOR NO10 STALLED
On it goes. In any list of MPs the public might like to forget, another former Chancellor, Philip Hammond, should feature high.
But this week Philip was back, insisting that only he really understands the people. According to him it is clear that Britain cannot leave the EU in October without a deal. Because to do so would be ‘a betrayal’ of the referendum result.
Hammond is now making all sorts of dark mutterings about what he and other Tory rebels might be capable of.
Yet he, like all the other plotters and gripers are forgetting something. It is true that the current government has a tiny majority.
It is true that getting anything through Parliament is a nightmare. But the one thing that the British public voted for in the largest numbers in our lifetimes was to leave the EU.
Anyone who thinks they will make it to No10 by stopping that has another think coming.
The mixed messages are plane
HARRY and Meghan have been making a lot of noise recently about their desire to save the planet.
So it was good to read of them using a private jet again this week. This time to fly the pair – at the cost of £20,000 – to a holiday in Ibiza.
Other celebrities do a better job of covering up their hypocrisies. This week, 16-year-old school truant Greta Thunberg has been in the news because of her latest effort to reduce her carbon footprint.
She has decided to get ahead of her critics, by heading to an engagement in America by yacht.
The £3.6million vessel was meant to save the carbon emissions she would have caused if she’d gone by plane. It looked uncomfortable and smelly, but principled.
It turns out this, too, is a steaming bucket of nonsense. For as the sceptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg has pointed out, there are hidden costs to the stunt.
For Thunberg will not be taking the same boat back. Instead, a five-man crew is flying over to the States in order to bring the boat back across the Atlantic.
So Thunberg’s stunt will end up costing many times the carbon emissions that it would have taken for her just to have flown to the US as usual.
- Douglas Murray’s new book ‘The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, Identity’ is out next month.
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