Holiday Job

Priti Patel goes on holiday to Israel. Like you do, she has meetings while she's there with a range of political contacts, including the Israeli Prime Minister. Theresa May, due to meet Netanyahu in London, had no idea he'd just been talking to her colleague. "It was just a holiday", said Patel. "And Boris knew." Well, he did - eventually. But not before it happened, and as a result officials had no chance to warn Patel that encouraging the Israeli army to think they'd get UK backing for a project on land they'd pinched from Syria might not be in our national interest. Not just a holiday, then. She actually managed to fit in 12 meetings, and apologised to Theresa May for not asking permission in advance. Oh, hang on a minute, make that fourteen. Eventually, and it takes a while, she is encouraged to resign.

Boris Johnson is no better. He languidly tells MPs he can't see anything wrong with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe training journalists, but she's not. And the Iranians are increasingly suspicious of her as a result of Johnson's words. He goes to the Commons. He apologises if anything he has said has been misunderstood, and implies that his remarks were "taken out of context." But they weren't understood, and they weren't taken out of context. Simply, he got it wrong, and should say so, with a clear, honest apology.

They can't do it. They simply can't face the fact that they told a lie. And, as an obsessive remoaner, it does occur to me that these were two of the star performers in the campaign which promised extra money for the NHS and as a result - according to its mastermind Dominic Cummings - won the Brexit vote.     

See "Code of Conduct (revised)" in Poems from the News, also on this website.