I wrote a very short letter to my MP last week: it simply said Dear Mr Pursglove, I’m ashamed of the man who is our Prime Minister. Are you? And if not, why not, please?
I had a 2-page response from Mr Pursglove yesterday, and fair enough, it’s a good response. It doesn’t actually answer my question but then I wasn’t confident that he would.
He refers me to his appearance on BBC Sunday Politics East a while back when he said that ‘some of what has been reported as having happened is completely indefensible’ – those are well-chosen words, but pretty much the right thing to say, even as a government minister. Well done!
Now Mr Pursglove says that he is replying to everyone individually but that doesn’t mean that he might not be using a carefully-crafted standard letter that lots of other MPs are sending out too, so I reproduce a part of it here.
I was pleased to see that the letter had the phrase ‘I want to take the opportunity to personally apologise too for what has happened and the hurt caused’. That’s good, a fine sentiment (pity about the split infinitive but I am a bit old-fashioned about them).
This considered letter is really so much better than some of the evasive responses that senior Conservatives have made in the media. I think Mr Pursglove is a bit ashamed of the Prime Minister, I think many people are, but wisely my young MP doesn’t want to trash his career by saying so.
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It is disingenuous to suggest the Prime Minister has apologised unreservedly. His apology to Parliament was very much of the non-apology kind, his senior cabinet ministers have sought hard to down play his transgressions as trivial and a distraction from the job the public wants him to get on with doing (I for one am getting heartily sick of being told by politicians what the public wants when they are actually describing what they want…). When facing Parliament to account for himself when it became untenable to keep pretending that there were no work parties and that if there were he didn’t know about them or take part in them he then shamelessly attempted to muddy the waters by throwing accusations at Keir Starmer that were both false and utterly irrelevant in any case to the matter in hand. When challenged on that, he resorted to yet another non apology. If Mr Purseglove is satisfied with any of this and says he believes that the PM ‘understands the anger [he] has caused’ he is not either very bright or himself somewhat less than completely honest.
I may be wrong, but I have the impression that beaver reintroductions are by translocation from sites with excess beavers within the UK. Any disease would have been already in the country.
“I think Mr Pursglove is a bit ashamed of the Prime Minister, I think many people are, but wisely my young MP doesn’t want to trash his career by saying so.”
Might I suggest that he might equally trash his career by not saying so.