Pissed-off Toff attempts to analyse his dislike of a man whose surname has four letters, and moves on to a more serious consideration.
It’s not Jeremy’s fault, I suppose, that he didn’t go to Eton, poor chap. But I simply can’t stick him.
As my legions of readers will have noted, I recently commented, with regard to the televised debate between the various prospective leaders of the Tory pary, on how the TV can, in a few moments, tell you as much about the participants as you might learn from a thousand inches of newspaper coverage. It was on the basis of this show that I formed a marked dislike of Rory Stewart, risen from a sarcophagus to moralise to us as he bared his horsey teeth in a series of unattractive grimaces, his spindly legs dangling uselessly from the studio stool.
A little later we had another TV debate, this time a narrower contest between Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson; just the two of them. Let’s leave aside the fact that this event, broadcast on national TV, was a complete irrelevance, in that those who will decide who is the next leader of the Tory party (and therefore the next PM after the May woman) are not the approx. 60 million members of the general public, but the approx. 160,000 members of the Tory party. So why the TV debate? Why address people who have no say in the matter?
In any case, I hate Hunt straight away. He’s common, he’s dull, he’s a low-level sales manager. He’s also wearing a frightful suit, and he has funny staring eyes, as though someone has shoved a large carrot up his arse. Plus, at the first opportunity, he informs us that he is ‘a tough negotiator’. Really? Seems to me that he’s a sly yes-man who will do what is required of him. Voted Remain but required to switch to Leave? No problem, boss. And those silly staring eyes, again.
Funny, isn’t it, how visceral one’s reactions can be? And now we have this reformed Remainer pretending that he is a Leaver. Who can believe that? Yet he chooses to attack Boris on this point.
“Will you resign as PM if you don’t deliver Brexit by 31 October?” asked Hunt, aggressively.
Understandably, Boris prevaricated. After all, he isn’t even PM yet. Who knows what the future holds? And why answer a question that is so obviously a trap?
“Come on,” pursued Hunt. “Tell us. Answer the question. Will you resign? Yes or no?” And he didn’t leave it at that. He kept on saying “Yes or No?” … “Yes or No?”
At which stage two thoughts ran through my mind.
One: I hate Jeremy Hunt. Not as much as I hate Theresa May. I haven’t polished it up that much. Not yet. But I definitely hate him.
And two (more importantly): If I were goaded and heckled by a bug-eyed twerp with an unfortunate surname and who didn’t even go to Eton, I am pretty sure that I would resort to language of a decidedly demotic nature. We have all the elements, do we not? A ‘U’ … an ‘N’ … a ‘T’. What’s not to like?
That Boris did not resort to the insults which I could not have resisted is to his credit. But more seriously, my point stands:
Just ’cos someone asks a question, it doesn’t mean you have to answer.
