Former Number 10 Chief of Staff, Nick Timothy, produced scathing criticism of his former boss’s conduct this morning in the Institute for Government podcast. Referencing May’s tirade in Wednesday’s Daily Mail, Timothy said she risks becoming the new Ted Heath…
“I think she needs to be careful [about how she criticises]. She doesn’t want to give the appearance of being a little bit bitter about her experience and Boris’ electoral success and so on in the way that maybe Ted Heath did about Margaret Thatcher.”
Timothy went on to explain the “green credentials” she brandishes now were not particularly apparent in Government, when she was “quite hard on Greg Clarke as the Secretary of State for being a bit too green.” What’s more, Timothy revealed that in Government May contemplated the very same foreign aid cuts she chastised Boris for as a “moral failure”…
“There were certainly conversations when I was in government about whether the 0.7% aid target should be retained in all circumstances and now she criticises them for making the decision she once contemplated.”
If May wants to alienate herself on the back benches she’s going the right way about it…
Hard political times over the last few years clearly left tired and stressed Downing Street staffers reaching for the tissues at times, though not to console an emotional Theresa May. New Freedom of Information request data seen by Guido reveals devices logged into No. 10’s wifi attempted to access hardcore porn websites 2,300 times in the three years between November 2016 and November 2019. For some reason the data stops after Boris moved in…
While the vast majority of attempted r-rated visits came from “guest” devices – what No. 10 attributes to “non-civil servants who are present in the building for various events, such as training.”, 94 of the 2,300 attempts came from full-time employees. The FoI request specified visits to sites including Pornhub, Redtube, Xhamster, Youporn, extremetube and literotica – the last of which proved most popular with 637 successful viewings during the three years…
Given the data covers almost all of Theresa May’s time in office, it’s ironic that a ministry attempting to introduce an internet porn ban completely failed to keep its own affairs in order: despite the Cabinet Office claiming there are filters in place to ban access to adult sites, Guido’s sums show 63% of the requests slipped through the net. Guido guesses Philip had to keep himself occupied somehow…
She has a point. Her much less independent deal was rejected by Starmer, amazingly on the grounds that it wasn’t close enough to EU membership. How’s that working out for him now…
Robbie Williams’s new anti-lockdown Christmas song music video, Can’t Stop Christmas, features the former Take That star get in full Boris Johnson hair and makeup to play the PM, alongside a very convincing Patrick Vallance look-a-like, and a Chris Whitty character who bears more of a resemblance to Neil Kinnock. As if the premise wasn’t weird enough, the final scene also features a twerking Theresa May…
Unexpectedly, this isn’t the only Theresa May cameo to hit mainstream culture this Christmas. This year’s New Years Dr Who special, which was written two-years-ago, features an authoritarian female Prime Minister using Daleks as defence drones “set to protect the UK from outside threats.” An alternative fishing waters defence policy in a No Deal scenario?
A female PM with two emotionless, abusive enforcers? Guido hopes Nick and Fiona get credited…
The Zoom social event of the season was broadcast last night as countless MPs, Boris, David Cameron, Theresa May, Gyles Brandreth, Tim Montgomerie and a number of Peers joined together for the 15th-anniversary fundraiser of Tory grassroots group Women2Win. A less-than-gripping Q&A session with the former PM perked Guido’s interest when May claimed that “by and large, I think female leaders are more interested in delivering and less interesting in grandstanding… they’re more pragmatic.” It may be the case there’s some research to back that up, though unfortunately the message was undermined by the messenger…
The blind auction fundraiser saw thousands spent on an eclectic mix of prizes, from signed copies of Sasha Swire’s autobiography to a “personal astrology reading,” which compère Gyles Brandreth promised to buy for Matt Hancock. Despite believing the contrary, Theresa’s auction offering failed to deliver big donations: her signed magnum of Nyetmiber is currently being outbid by Boris’s signed bottle of Louis Roederer…
Boris scuttled out of the chamber at the start of his predecessor’s speech, perhaps he should have stuck about for it. Theresa May tore into not only Labour’s recurring lockdown plans, she also slammed the lack of analysis on how the government’s tiered system is working. The former Prime Minister said it seems as if the decision to lock down was influenced by Vallance and Whitty’s scenario of 4,000 deaths a day – a trajectory that the UK is clearly not actually on. Or likely ever was…
“For many people it looks as if the figures are chosen to support the policy rather than the policy being based on the figures.”
She went on to decry the lack of a cost benefits analysis of lockdown – which many think would show that the lockdown costs outweigh the benefits. She also joined religious leaders in warning against banning religious services and the cancellation of the national remembrance service in particular. Who would have thought that Theresa May, of all people, would be flying the flag for the libertarian right of the Conservative Party?
