I’m not a fan of farce. I can savour Oscar Wilde, but not too regularly. Carry On films I run a mile from. This week’s Johnson/Pincher palaver is definitely in the latter camp. Somehow however, I’ve been addicted to every new drip of nonsense in the Carry On Chris and Boris saga. It’s a watching-the-car-crash thing.
Chris Pincher is a Conservative politician with a penchant for feeling-up men. Nothing strange there. Apparently his reputation’s been around long enough for Honest Boris to state “Pincher by name, pincher by nature”. There have been complaints about him in the past, but our illustrious PM ignored them and appointed Pincher to the Chief Whip’s office: making a known groper deputy party policeman. How Carry-On. Pincher got bevvied and let his hands wander far enough to end his career last week.
End of story? You’d think so. Even the crass stupidity of his whip appointment could have been put to bed (so to speak) with a bit of honesty and apology.
The Downing Street response has been to keep drip-feeding transparent lies. Gently blowing on the kindling. As each lie has been found out they’ve floundered with a damper tissue-story and someone more authoritative has stepped forward to refute it.
Now, that Honest Boris and his cronies lie automatically is no news. It’s a Dog-Bites-Man story, and won’t surprise anyone. What is fascinating is around the competence. The political industry is about news management, running stuff comes second or third. If a Prime Minister’s Office with its professional media support can’t come up with a story and run with it for a week, for God’s sake don’t let them run a bath, let alone a country.