You’re spot on on his weakness - the firewall required to be a real psychopath is missing in him.
In many respects that’s what makes him and what he did, or didn’t do, all the more frustrating.
There’s an inkling that he should’ve performed and behaved with more thoughtfulness and diligence and that this probably exists within him too.
The greater tragedy is that his smallness as a person, his ineptitude (so thinly veiled) had such big implications for a society he was unfit to serve.
Sunak is going to be treat - I suspect we're going to see his tetchiness on full display as KCs refuse to treat him with the respect he's somehow convinced he's earned.
However bad Hancock and his fellow Tories are, at least we do have the power to vote them out. But when people like Prof Dame Jenny Harries, who's now in charge of the new UK Health Security Agency*, are entirely unable to recognise their errors and are entirely unrepentant, then I worry. She'd be in charge of the next pandemic response and she's entirely unfit for the post.
Other than the comment about Esther Mcvey, which did make my laugh, I read this article with a growing sense of horror at just how far, and how fast, Britain s governance has declined. I live in France, a country whose President had produced a preliminary report on Covid even before the 2nd lockdown, who took personal responsibility for the initial lack off PPE and who subjected himself to unscripted questioning by 2 top journalists on live TV even whilst the pandemic was still in full force. Contrasted with the desperate attempt to obfuscate, lose WhatsApp messages, and generally push the blame onto anybody else available of our government, It makes Britain, or primarily England look like some kind of 21st version of a 1950s Ealing comedy. If we do not manage to remove the Tories really don’t know what is going to become of us.
I have read the article and a few others. I agree with your view of these figures and I really like your articles for the I. But I don't like this way of talking about people whatever their shortcomings. It is descending to their level. I feel that we should speak respectfully about other people, otherwise we buy into the abuse of politicians that leads to the good politicians, especially women, giving up. I'm also going to unsubscribe for these reasons.
Perhaps I could agree if they weren’t incompetent, venal, lying, mendacious and lacking in empathy and humanity. Most of those named should be nowhere near running the country. They probably shouldn’t be MPs. There used to be the odd Tory one could accept, had some hinterland and a sense of duty. I might not have agreed with them, but I respected their basic integrity. But this lot…
I have not read the article, but I'm going to unsubscribe. It's one thing to Tweet something like this, and another for it to arrive in my inbox. I've enjoyed some of your insights on the podcast and Twitter, but your degradation of political language has reached a limit for me. It strikes me as a sort of centrist populist way of communicating, and as much as I find Matt Hancock a disgrace nobody deserves to be referred to in this way. Your intelligence is there for all to see, please compliment it with some maturity and responsibility.
Interesting that you’re going to unsubscribe before even reading it. Speaking personally, I rather like Ian s combination of down to earth language, and unpretentious erudition.
I think you mean QC rather than KC sorry to be pedantic, otherwise I agree with all the above, they are all dimwits but with that face Hancock is the poster boy for inadequatecy he makes my overies cringe and he's a narcissist to boot. Seeing the remenets of a dying party squirm its way through that inquiry into the failure of Covid policy causing the death of thousands of people (let us never forget the "protective ring around the care home comment ) as the news of a truly admirable and throuroughly decent former chancellor had passed away broke really was a moment of realisation about how low the bar now is. Johnson next just when you think it can't get worse there is always him.
Brilliant. Hilarious, if it wasn’t so utterly grim.
You’re spot on on his weakness - the firewall required to be a real psychopath is missing in him.
In many respects that’s what makes him and what he did, or didn’t do, all the more frustrating.
There’s an inkling that he should’ve performed and behaved with more thoughtfulness and diligence and that this probably exists within him too.
The greater tragedy is that his smallness as a person, his ineptitude (so thinly veiled) had such big implications for a society he was unfit to serve.
And with Raab, it's his irritability that he can't mask. It's always clear he thinks he shouldn't be answerable to anyone, any time.
Sunak is going to be treat - I suspect we're going to see his tetchiness on full display as KCs refuse to treat him with the respect he's somehow convinced he's earned.
Yep, spot on.
However bad Hancock and his fellow Tories are, at least we do have the power to vote them out. But when people like Prof Dame Jenny Harries, who's now in charge of the new UK Health Security Agency*, are entirely unable to recognise their errors and are entirely unrepentant, then I worry. She'd be in charge of the next pandemic response and she's entirely unfit for the post.
https://twitter.com/danielgoyal/status/1730326831406969103
* UKHSA is appallingly misnamed - it's not a UK-wide operation, it's a replacement for Public Health England.
Other than the comment about Esther Mcvey, which did make my laugh, I read this article with a growing sense of horror at just how far, and how fast, Britain s governance has declined. I live in France, a country whose President had produced a preliminary report on Covid even before the 2nd lockdown, who took personal responsibility for the initial lack off PPE and who subjected himself to unscripted questioning by 2 top journalists on live TV even whilst the pandemic was still in full force. Contrasted with the desperate attempt to obfuscate, lose WhatsApp messages, and generally push the blame onto anybody else available of our government, It makes Britain, or primarily England look like some kind of 21st version of a 1950s Ealing comedy. If we do not manage to remove the Tories really don’t know what is going to become of us.
Or as Frankie Boyle once put it Leasure Center Manager
Forgot a word, embattled leasure center manager
Lovely piece of writing
I have read the article and a few others. I agree with your view of these figures and I really like your articles for the I. But I don't like this way of talking about people whatever their shortcomings. It is descending to their level. I feel that we should speak respectfully about other people, otherwise we buy into the abuse of politicians that leads to the good politicians, especially women, giving up. I'm also going to unsubscribe for these reasons.
Perhaps I could agree if they weren’t incompetent, venal, lying, mendacious and lacking in empathy and humanity. Most of those named should be nowhere near running the country. They probably shouldn’t be MPs. There used to be the odd Tory one could accept, had some hinterland and a sense of duty. I might not have agreed with them, but I respected their basic integrity. But this lot…
I have not read the article, but I'm going to unsubscribe. It's one thing to Tweet something like this, and another for it to arrive in my inbox. I've enjoyed some of your insights on the podcast and Twitter, but your degradation of political language has reached a limit for me. It strikes me as a sort of centrist populist way of communicating, and as much as I find Matt Hancock a disgrace nobody deserves to be referred to in this way. Your intelligence is there for all to see, please compliment it with some maturity and responsibility.
Interesting that you’re going to unsubscribe before even reading it. Speaking personally, I rather like Ian s combination of down to earth language, and unpretentious erudition.
I think you mean QC rather than KC sorry to be pedantic, otherwise I agree with all the above, they are all dimwits but with that face Hancock is the poster boy for inadequatecy he makes my overies cringe and he's a narcissist to boot. Seeing the remenets of a dying party squirm its way through that inquiry into the failure of Covid policy causing the death of thousands of people (let us never forget the "protective ring around the care home comment ) as the news of a truly admirable and throuroughly decent former chancellor had passed away broke really was a moment of realisation about how low the bar now is. Johnson next just when you think it can't get worse there is always him.
They're KCs since the Queen died.
Omfg of course they are! Bloody hell haha so much for being pedantic haha 😂