After the brutal hacking of Education Secretary Gillian Keegan over Christmas, which saw her account fire out dozens of spam crypto links before being wiped entirely, Twitter hackers scored another victory this morning as they managed to get into Chris Heaton-Harris’s account. And Anna Soubry’s for good measure…
Just after 7am, Chris posted a number of confusing tweets calling for the freeing of a person called “mizz”, as well as posting a selfie of a man captioned, “imran khan poor p*ki and minecraft roleplayer”. Soubry fell victim to the same scammer, calling someone a “n*g n*g”…
While it did appear Heaton-Harris had managed to wrestle back control of his account a lot quicker than his cabinet counterpart managed – tweeting a confirmation of the hacking – a subsequent tweet about forcing all trans and homosexuals to work behind a bar for 10 years implies that’s not the case.
You would hope the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland had better security procedures in place…
It’s the electoral comeback of the century: Anna Soubry has won her election to the Bar Council. Guido first revealed she was wooing her learned friends with claims of “experience and connections in Parliament” earlier this month, and it looks like they actually bought it. She will now serve as a self-employed junior on the 2023 Bar Council of England and Wales. Guido’s not convinced though. Perhaps we some sort of second confirmatory vote, just to be sure…
The comeback no one was asking for: Guido can reveal Anna Soubry is emerging from her cave to once again stand for election… this time for the Bar Council. With the Bar already insufficiently staffed with embittered remainers, Soubry is pitching to “offer [her] time” – given she has plenty nowadays – along with using her “experience and connections in Parliament” to impress her new colleagues. Soubry’s latest career goal is a surprise given she’s previously denied having any experience propping up the bar…
Read her full manifesto below:
To say questions have been raised about Sky’s debate audience last night would be an understatement. Despite two polls this week giving Liz a 32-34 point lead over rival Rishi, the audience was incredibly hostile towards her, with Rishi coming out on top. Sky News has said the audience was made up of undecided members. Guido’s not sure they did their homework properly…
One very critical anti-Liz audience member has already been identified as Jill Andrew, a former CCHQ lawyer and party candidate who stood against Boris for his Henley seat in 2001. Hardly a typical member…
The jewel in Sky’s audience crowd, however, was undoubtedly Tom Harding, who went to town on Liz over her regional pay boards u-turn before almost starting a fight with a fellow audience member standing up for her. Harding, it transpires, is none other than Anna Soubry’s former chief of staff…
Among Tom’s work for Soubry included defending her defection from the party in 2019 and supporting her 2016 campaign for Remain. Tom also appeared on Question Time in June this year – he gets around – to announce that “The only reason I’m a member of the party now is to get rid of Boris Johnson”.
“The only reason I’m a member of the party now is to get rid of Boris Johnson”
— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) June 16, 2022
This #bbcqt audience member believes the Rwanda flights plan shows “incompetence” within government. pic.twitter.com/zh5suCDBDz
After a brief stint as a Tom Tugendhat fan, Soubry’s former chief bag carrier has swung in behind Rishi Sunak, a declaration he made publicly on July 20th, despite Sky claiming the audience was undecided.
Completely!!! If the party votes Truss then we deserve opposition. I’ll be using my vote for Rishi.
— Tom Harding (@TGHarding) July 20, 2022
This basic research isn’t difficult…
During the Question Time Ukraine Special last night, former Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt (who is married to Stephen Kinnock) smugly came out with this disconnected-from-reality take:
“First of all you said something that made me almost chuckle before, when you said ‘Putin will think that the UK’s leading the efforts against Russia right now’ of course it’s not. The EU is leading the effort against Russia so I don’t think they’ll see Boris Johnson as a particular leader in this field”
Leaving aside the fact David Lammy can be seen nodding along to this nonsensical bilge, Thorning-Schmidt is clearly oblivious to the UK government trying to go further and faster than almost all of the EU when it comes to sending military equipment, banning Russia from SWIFT and sanctioning more Russian assets than the US and EU combined. It was not the UK that dithered on sanctions, or carved out exceptions so Italy could carry on exporting luxury handbags to Putin’s regime.
Even Kremlin spokesman Maria Zakharova contradicts Lammy et al: “London plays one of the leading, if not the main, roles, leaves us no choice but to take proportionately tough retaliatory measures. London has made a final choice of open confrontation with Russia.” A back handed compliment to London’s leading role against Russia.
Of course it’s not just Thorning-Schmidt becoming deranged by this self-loathing brain rot.
The inhumanity of our Govts resistance to fleeing refugees is depriving the kind and generous hearts of the British people of their capacity for compassion… we want to help… please let us.
— Deborah Meaden 🇺🇦 (@DeborahMeaden) March 8, 2022
"I'm very grateful to you Boris" says Zelensky, calling for tighter sanctions.
— Kevin Maguire (@Kevin_Maguire) March 8, 2022
The UK lags behind the EU and US.
Apart from the UK, are there any other western democracies that are still allowing members of Putin's government to buy and sell assets, set up companies, and raise money? Is the UK alone or are there other safe havens for them to use?
— Jessica Simor QC (@JMPSimor) March 6, 2022
.@BrookesTimes pic.twitter.com/js62y6GW7k
— Anna Soubry (@Anna_Soubry) March 4, 2022
Very funny seeing these stupid fucking op-eds saying "Putin feels like he can attack Ukraine because we are all too woke" instead of saying "it's because he literally owns our Prime Minister"
— Nish Kumar (@MrNishKumar) March 5, 2022
Did he thank you and @pritipatel for being world leading in the raising of obstacles to 🇺🇦 refugees? Or for the succour you continue to give to Putin- and Tory-backing 🇷🇺 oligarchs? https://t.co/Wuw6K3AiS8
— ALASTAIR CAMPBELL (@campbellclaret) March 10, 2022
Orwell’s oft quoted point that “England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality” could be re-applied to remoaners, it is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any tweeting, FBPE hashtagging, blue ticker would feel more ashamed of crediting Boris for something than of stealing from a poor box. All of this is without going over those who revelled in Russia’s foreign minister insulting Liz Truss, because our enemies are less bad than any Tory. Yesterday’s polling showed how those on the ground in Ukraine actually feel, without the luxury to sit back and play political point-scoring via Twitter. Boris is the most popular politician after Zelenskyy among the Ukrainian people, though in the minds of deranged Remoaners he may as well be Putin…
Sparks flew on Newsnight yesterday as Charles Walker – who’d clearly had his Weetabix – turned up to defend Boris’s new cabinet against a Labour spokesperson and Anna Soubry. Some might say one and the same…
Nadine Dorries provided the biggest clash, as the eternally bitter Soubry ranted that her appointment “actually says everything that’s wrong and rotten about this prime minister’s stewardship of this country”. Charles Walker had some thoughts:
“Nadine Dorries has been a health minister, a minister of state, at an incredibly difficult time for the department of health; has been an extremely good minister for mental health; and really to come onto this programme and just trash her like that is just not a very nice thing to do to be perfectly honest”
Responding to Soubry’s claim that people don’t really care about reshuffles in the real world, Walker pointed out “Why is it the lead story on Newsnight, and why are you appearing on Newsnight?” Why indeed…
