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Kindle Notes & Highlights
But then that’s the thing about Corbyn, isn’t it? He looks at every situation and thinks, I’m going to do precisely the opposite of everyone else. I’m going to hold up my middle finger to all of you, and defy the whip an incredible 428 times. I’m going to be resolutely anti-British, support the IRA, take pictures of manhole covers, and give Diane Abbott a lift on the back of my motorbike through the unusual holiday destination of East Germany.
Bercow is in trouble. But will it do for him? The new report into the bullying and sexual harassment in parliament came out yesterday, telling us all what we already know: that there is an unhealthy ‘us and them’ culture, with MPs enjoying an ‘almost God-like status’ that makes them feel they can behave how they like.
Raab and Rumpole (Geoffrey Cox) are emerging as the two people in the cabinet who have sufficient intellect to take on the EU.
The really good news is that some of the most irritating of our brethren have threatened to depart the party if no deal happens: Sarah Wollaston and Nick Boles say they’ll be first out the door. H says he will be there to lock it behind them.
Meanwhile, Labour officially comes out to support a second referendum in a bid to stop the haemorrhaging of members. Quite a shrewd move, considering half their MPs won’t back it; second, it makes them look as if they are trying; and third, it won’t get through parliament.
were in my position?’ ‘Hunt, probably.’ But he adds that a lot of ministers who worked for him loathe him.
Jeremy Hunt in the Commons, taking FCO questions. You could skid on the floor, it’s so greasy. What is it about Hunt? He has something of the head boy about him, the teacher’s pet. Suddenly we are hearing about his interventions on defence spending, and a no-deal Brexit, swinging whichever way the wind turns.
But you think they would learn. Remember Ed Miliband had two kitchens. Nigel Farage’s kitchen was a shoe box, probably because he was never at home and someone other than his wife was cooking him dinner. Gordon had an Ikea one he put on expenses and David resigned in his one at Dean, and Samantha spent huge sums of her own money having one installed at No. 10.
Boris a no show at the Channel 4 debate. In mitigation, it was Father’s Day and he must have had a lot of house calls to make.
The spin was that the top jobs went to those who were born to second-generation immigrants. The interesting thing about that is they usually have a drawbridge mentality, which means they espouse reactionary politics and are the least progressive of the lot.
Yes, he is an alley cat, but he has a greatness of soul, a generosity of spirit, a desire to believe the best in people, a lack of pettiness and envy which is pretty uncommon in politics, and best of all a wonderful comic vision of the human condition. He is not like any politician I have ever encountered before, and I have met many. You can’t quite believe he is there. In that job! But he is and it’s going to be a hell of a ride.
Remainer maniac menace Hugh Grant, the one who spent years campaigning against press freedom and who now wants to overturn Brexit, the largest democratic vote in UK history, turns up in East Devon. Yes, really, there on Sidmouth seafront yesterday, surrounded by a bunch of mothy lefties from the Claire Wright cult.
And now Britain will wake up to its first solid majority for many decades, and no Tory leader has done that since Margaret Thatcher in 1987.
