Saturday, March 09, 2019
Tory cabinet members race to the bottom
Is there a competition amongst Tory Cabinet Ministers to see who can make the biggest gaffe and still remain sitting at the cabinet table? Is first prize tea at the Ritz? Because if it is, Chris Grayling is still in pole position, but Northern Ireland Secretary, Karen Bradley is running him close.
I only ask because if that is not the case then we are doomed, doomed I tell you, to obscurity and disaster as a country. Never in the history of the United Kingdom has our future been entrusted to such a bunch of nincompoops at such a crucial turning point in our relations with the outside world.
Karen Bradley, like Grayling, has form. Do you remember her admission last September, that before becoming Northern Ireland secretary she was profoundly ignorant of the country’s political divisions and “slightly scared” of the place?
She told the House Magazine she was unaware that nationalists did not vote for unionists and that unionists did not vote for nationalists – the most elementary fact about Northern Ireland politics. Now she has compounded that error with he biggest gaffe so far.
As the Independent reports, Bradley provoked fury when she claimed fewer than 10 per cent of deaths during the conflict were committed by the military and police, who were only "fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way":
In response to a question from the DUP's Emma Little-Pengelly, Ms Bradley told the Commons: "Over 90 per cent of the killings during the Troubles were at the hands of terrorists, every single one of those was a crime. The fewer than 10 per cent that were at the hands of the military and police were not crimes."
She has now sought to walk back those remarks, but the damage has been done:
John Teggart, whose father Danny was shot 14 times at Ballymurphy, said she should “do the dignified and appropriate thing” and resign immediately.
“Ballymurphy massacre families have been requesting a meeting with the secretary of state since she took up her position of secretary of state for Northern Ireland,” he said.
“Karen Bradley hasn’t even replied to these requests.”
He added: “We will not meet her, and have one request for Mrs Bradley – and that is for her to resign immediately.”
Theresa May says she has full confidence in her Northern Ireland Secretary. As with a lot of things May has confidence in, she may well be alone in that belief.
I only ask because if that is not the case then we are doomed, doomed I tell you, to obscurity and disaster as a country. Never in the history of the United Kingdom has our future been entrusted to such a bunch of nincompoops at such a crucial turning point in our relations with the outside world.
Karen Bradley, like Grayling, has form. Do you remember her admission last September, that before becoming Northern Ireland secretary she was profoundly ignorant of the country’s political divisions and “slightly scared” of the place?
She told the House Magazine she was unaware that nationalists did not vote for unionists and that unionists did not vote for nationalists – the most elementary fact about Northern Ireland politics. Now she has compounded that error with he biggest gaffe so far.
As the Independent reports, Bradley provoked fury when she claimed fewer than 10 per cent of deaths during the conflict were committed by the military and police, who were only "fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way":
In response to a question from the DUP's Emma Little-Pengelly, Ms Bradley told the Commons: "Over 90 per cent of the killings during the Troubles were at the hands of terrorists, every single one of those was a crime. The fewer than 10 per cent that were at the hands of the military and police were not crimes."
She has now sought to walk back those remarks, but the damage has been done:
John Teggart, whose father Danny was shot 14 times at Ballymurphy, said she should “do the dignified and appropriate thing” and resign immediately.
“Ballymurphy massacre families have been requesting a meeting with the secretary of state since she took up her position of secretary of state for Northern Ireland,” he said.
“Karen Bradley hasn’t even replied to these requests.”
He added: “We will not meet her, and have one request for Mrs Bradley – and that is for her to resign immediately.”
Theresa May says she has full confidence in her Northern Ireland Secretary. As with a lot of things May has confidence in, she may well be alone in that belief.
