Ever find yourself wondering if politicians are living in the same reality as the rest of us? Breathing the same air, speaking the same language? It’s almost as if they attend a special “idiot school” post-election, adopting an air of effortless superiority that leaves the public perpetually misunderstood. Take the case of George Freeman, a former Tory minister seemingly struggling with a £120,000 yearly income, relying on a Just Giving fundraiser to keep him off the streets. Let’s spare a thought for George.
However, Freeman is not alone in this peculiar narrative. On a Wednesday, it appeared as though every minister or ex-minister was on a mission to treat the public like fools. Perhaps they had an excess of condescension to burn for the month, ready to reset on the first day of February. Or maybe, many have simply thrown in the towel, recognizing that change is imminent, and they’ve given up the facade of taking their jobs seriously.
In Scotland, the former first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, faced the Covid inquiry. Since her resignation in March, she’s been entangled in police queries about SNP’s finances, including mysteries like a luxury motorhome parked at her mother-in-law’s house. Lead counsel Jamie Dawson grilled Sturgeon about missing WhatsApp messages, revealing a trend among politicians to delete messages related to Covid. Sturgeon’s response? A mix of apologies, saving relevant messages, and a touch of plausible deniability.
As we delve into surviving WhatsApp messages hinting at a culture of plausible deniability, Sturgeon nonchalantly shrugged off any connections to destroying evidence. To her, it was all a joke, and sometimes she just misremembered things. The whole inquiry seemed like a walk in the park for Sturgeon, who even managed to squeeze in her thoughts on Boris Johnson being the wrong person to be prime minister.
Meanwhile, back in London, James Cleverly struggled with language during a home affairs committee appearance, downplaying the migrant processing backlog as a mere orderly queue. Rishi Sunak at Prime Minister’s Questions seemed to have run out of sensible things to say, and Keir Starmer, though winning easily, felt uninspiring in his exchanges with Sunak.
As the day unfolded, even Andrea Leadsom made a cameo, celebrating the four-year anniversary of Brexit and suggesting we cheer on rising food prices as a symbol of liberation. A perplexing suggestion, but perhaps that’s just par for the course in the ever-entertaining world of politics.
