I normally feel sorry for people who buckle under pressure – let’s face it, we’ve all been there or thereabouts. But I’m tempted to make an exception in Andrew Mitchell’s case, because he brought it on himself by accepting the two jobs David Cameron has so far offered him (there obviously won’t be a third).First, in 2010, he was asked to run the Department for International Development, a job which involves dispensing billions of pounds of British taxpayers’ hard-earned money to basket-case countries, many of which hate our guts, many of which are run by anti-Western tyrants, and some of which (India, for instance) simultaneously reward out "generosity" by handing juicy business contracts to our notoriously tight-fisted competitors (i.e. the Frogs) while telling Britain they don't need or want our aid money anyway. Further billions are handed to the EU and its related agencies to provide life-support for the doomed Euro.
For a genuine Tory, this must be the equivalent of a Church of England priest handing over his church's weekly collection money to a brothel-owner in order that the girls who work there don’t have to earn an honest living. (The clients in this case being bleeding heart members of the world’s politico-media elite who enjoy nothing better than seeing hard-working people’s money squandered in order to prop up failed institutions and failed countries.)
Then, as a reward for having to act against his political principles, the poor schmuck is made Chief Whip in the worst possible circumstances: the Coalition government is a confused mess, the Tory leader and his hapless chancellor are roundly despised by most MPs, the party has flushed most of its principles down the toilet, backbenchers can’t be kept quiet by the promise of pay-roll jobs because of bed-blocking by a bunch of sensationally useless Libdems - and there isn’t a hope in hell of the Conservative Party being in power after the next election. What possessed Mitchell to accept this particular hospital pass – apart from the standard politician's lust for power – I can’t imagine.
Imagine the strain of having to do deeply un-Tory things on behalf of a deeply un-Tory Prime Minister. I can picture Andrew Mitchell waking up most nights shrieking and covered in cold sweat from what he imagines to be a nightmare – only to discover that it’s all horribly, unbearably real.
So, maddened by the awfulness of his existence, and unable to punch David Cameron in the face or throttle a Libdem minister or belabour a sneering journalist with an empty Scotch bottle, he takes out all his disappointment and frustration out on a copper who was simply doing his job and who – even worse – had failed to recognise the Great Man. I mean, what’s the point of discovering that your jolly important job is in absolute crock – and that it's so piddly even the police in Downing Street don't recognise you! Ouch!
At that point Mitchell’s inner Tory – which he has no doubt spent the last two years ruthlessly suppressing – surfaced in the most unfortunate way, snarling in fury at a member of the lower orders. Shame, in a way – but that’s what happens when you find yourself leading an inauthentic life: and, thanks to Cameron and his pestilential posse of Tory “modernisers” (i.e. appeasers), there can be few things more inauthentic than the lives of the members of this dreadful government.
I hope Mitchell discovers an urgent need to spend more time with his family, and, above all, that he resists the temptation to post a mea culpa video on YouTube – and that the next patsy to be offered the job of Tory Chief Whip tells Posh Boy exactly where he can shove it.
It's a very charitable interpretation which some might see as a variation on the ingenious and highly successful Moss-Scruton defence.
ReplyDelete"M'lud, this existential crisis was triggered by something as trivial as PC Snodgrove's insistence on a bicycle route redeployment that my client interpreted as a challenge to his status and authority. The fact that it followed the tragic realisation that no one in his professional life took him seriously either must surely be a mitigating circumstance to invoke the mercy of the court. The use of the words "Out of my important way you unspeakably oikish pleb who can't recognise a toff when you see one" of which the defence does not admit, must be seen in that context".
That should do the trick.
A patient who still favours his hair in a fringe at the age of 56, while not disguising that it has turned grey, may be suffering a form of arrested development that cannot differentiate between what is appropriate to the child and to the man.
ReplyDeleteI would like to study this case further. It might be, for example, that at the age of 9, an ear-tweaking for scrumping apples on the family estate administered by his father's man of business might have led to retaliation with a well-aimed catapulted plum. The paternal thrashing that could well have followed might well have set in train a pattern of respect/antagonism vis a vis authority figures which could conceivably continue to this day. In this context, any precipitate action by an authority figure might reinforce the impact of the childhood trauma that lies beneath, with potentially unseemly consequences.
I imagine that these are the sort of factors that influenced our Prime Minister in his advice to make a begrudging and carefully nuanced semi- apology, pretend to be contrite to the lower orders and try not to be such a CAUC next time.
In the first episode of "Parade's End" the Reverend Duchemin [Rufus Sewell] turns to a male guest at the breakfast table and says "You look tired, sir. You have the look of a chronic self-abuser".
ReplyDeleteForget the wicker basket and the bike . I bet he drives a Saab. Saab drivers always seem to be like him . Nice cars but not nice drivers.
ReplyDeleteI'd never thought of Saab drivers that way - I shall keep an eye out for them. Experience tells me that Audi drivers are the worst offenders: inconsiderate, bullying, dangerous, yobbish - if you ever see an Audi 4x4 on the road, you can be pretty sure there's a CAUC at the wheel. Weirdly, Porsche drivers - whom one would expect to be the most offensive - seem quite reasonable on the whole. Maybe it's because they know that they won't be given the benefit of the doubt if pulled over.
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