[ad_1]
What a difference 24 hours makes. In a crass, insensitive remark on Trevor Phillips on Sunday on Sky News, Cabinet minister George Eustice dismissed the Owen Paterson row as a “storm in a teacup”.
Yet in the emergency Commons debate on standards and sleaze, the hapless Steve Barclay – sent into the Commons chamber to defend what many MPs claim was indefensible – could not have been more contrite.
The Cabinet Office minister, rather sheepishly, said the government regretted the mistake it made last week when Tory MPs were bludgeoned into voting to reprieve Mr Paterson and scrap the system for investigating complaints. Really?
Mr Barclay might regret it. But there’s not much evidence that Boris Johnson regrets what happened. The prime minister conveniently found a pressing engagement at a hospital in Hexham, more than 250 miles from London.
Last week the PM chose to fly back from the COP26 summit in a private jet – hardly environmentally friendly – to attend a claret and pheasant dinner at the men-only Garrick Club with his Brexiteer chums from The Daily Telegraph.
Yet he made no effort to dash back to the Commons from Northumberland for this emergency debate. The private jet must have been left on the runway this time.
“Frankly, I don’t think there’s much more to be said about the Owen Paterson case, I really don’t,” he said dismissively during his Hexham visit, where he didn’t wear a mask, incidentally. It sounded like he doesn’t care about this row and that’s why he didn’t turn up.
No apology from the PM, then. But the prime minister doesn’t really do apologies. Perhaps he should think about that. A new Ipsos MORI poll suggests Labour has edged ahead of the Tories and now leads by 36% to 35%.
The PM’s own ratings are becoming…
[ad_2]
Source : skynews
