There is a new candidate for my useful idiot of the decade award, which I had thought was a walkover for Margaret Beckett, the self confessed moron.
Mags, bless her, nominated Jeremy Corbyn even though she didn't want him as Labour leader because she thought there should be a candidate from the left in the leadership election even though he didn't have enough support to even get on the ballot paper. "At no point did I intend to vote for Jeremy myself.....nor advise anyone else to do it," she said. When MPs who "lent" their nominations to Mr Corbyn to "broaden the debate" were described as "morons" she didn't demur*. Beckett is one of the touted candidates for caretaker prime minister in the risible GNU (Government of National Unity) idea.
How could that be beaten?
Well Sir Oliver Letwin has stepped forward with his successful amendment to the Commons motion which allowed MPs to defer the decision on Brexit, even tough he supports Johnson's deal and subsequently voted for it.
Letwin, of course, has form: he was the brains behind the poll tax which did for Margaret Thatcher and also behind the fixed term Parliament Act which means we can't get an election even though the current Parliament is moribund and discredited. Apparently when he was a teenager he was branded a "nice boy, but no common sense"**.
I guess which idiot wins my prize depends on whether Corbyn ever gets to be PM or whether Letwin's intervention proves fatal for Brexit. The latter seems somewhat more likely at the moment, though on current public mood even if this Parliament can't get Brexit done I think the bookies would favour Leave to win a second referendum (the EU seem to think that's what would happen) and Johnson would probably win a majority in a General election on a platform of getting the deal implemented. While Corbyn is long odds to be PM at the moment things can change and I hate to think how much damage he and his ilk would do to the economy in a 5 year term. Probably far more than any hit from Brexit, which I am currently feeling could be smaller than the musings of the dismal scientists that are economists.
* BBC website: Maraget Beckett: I was moron to nominate Jeremy Corbyn
** Dominic Lawson's account in the Daily Mail.
How about my nominating those Labour MP's who openly admitted when being interviewed on TV in the past week that they'd not read the Johnson Deal but were willing to vote for it anyway!
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