'Oh, so that's who Richard Morris is..." Lord Hattersley on The Daily Politics

'An influential activist' - The Guardian

'Iain Dale, without the self loathing' - Matthew Fox in The New Statesman

'
You are a tinker...' - Tim Farron

Saturday 20 October 2012

Why the #greattrainsnobbery showed how Andrew Mitchell had to go.

Its fairly clear now that there was no direct link between the timing of Andrew Mitchell's resignation  and the #greattrainsnobbery incident (hats off to our very own @mshapland for the hashtag) involving George Osborne. Twitter was alight last night suggesting that Mitchell had gone to protect the chancellor - whereas in truth it seems Mitchell was at Chequers at 4pm resigning even as the ITV reporter in the next carriage to Osborne got the scoop of her career (most likely)


But never the less, the two are clearly related.

The Osborne story was only really a story because the media narrative - "they think they're better than the rest of us" - had been set by the Mitchell story. And that's a feeling now firmly entrenched in everyone's psyche.

Hence, on the appointment of a new Chief whip, the immediate comment was that he appeared to be an old Etonian Baronet. we're all in this together are we?

And its a theme that will come up over and over again. Which is why Mitchell had to go.

Also worth pointing out that the Mitchell resignation letter again made clear that he didn't use the words pleb and moron, as allegedly set out on the police log.

"I have made clear to you - and I give you my categorical assurance again - that I did not, never have, and never would call a police officer a "pleb" or a "moron" or used any of the other pejorative descriptions attributed to me. The offending comment and the reason for my apology to the police was my parting remark "I thought you guys were supposed to f***ing help us". It was obviously wrong of me to use such bad language and I am very sorry about it and grateful to the police officer for accepting my apology"

So there really is going to have to be an investigation into that And if tMitchell is correct and the Police Logs are not true, that would be a very serious matter indeed.

This story was actually given more legs by the Mitchell resignation.




2 comments:

  1. I thought in the Commons during #PMQs, Mitchell was heard saying he didn't swear. Now in his resignation letter, he said he did! Or does Mitchell think "f****ing" is not a swear word?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael Fabricant tweeted hatt didn't he? Yes, its all very murky....

    ReplyDelete