…..and she’s flip-flop on Brexit.
There are four excellent reasons for Conservatives – and other lovers of genuine liberty in the UK – to have grave doubts about the idea of Theresa May becoming the Tory leader. First, she has committed a grave act of interference in media free speech this weekend. Second, her connection to G4S – the most incompetent and sleazy security firm on the planet – raises major question marks. Third, she’ll swing either way on Brexit to get to the top. And finally, she ticks all the boxes on the tapioca factor – that is, being well below the default mediocre standards of the political class. The Slog deconstructs the demonic Home Secretary.
A major piece in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph appeared and then disappeared in rapid succession. As we’ll see a few paragraphs further down, wannabe Prime Minister Theresa May was the subject of the article. It was a biopost of sorts. I think it would be fair to say that Whiplash May didn’t come out of it terribly well.
Various bullies from within the May Coronation in September Committee saw the early morning online copy, and immediately told the Telegraph to pull it. Being spineless, the Barclay twins acquiesced…but by that time, Guido’s spies had seen the piece and page-captured it.
Regular Sloggers will remember May as the inventor and promoter of the ‘non-violent extremist’ (NVE) legislation inspired by Louis XVI’s habit of banging up anyone who disgreed with him. In a nation where citizen rights are already severely battered, the Tories are on the verge of electing the vandal largely responsible for it to the leadership.
This isn’t rhetoric: feedback I was given last night alleged that May already has around 100 solid pledges from the parliamentary Party. That’s in the region of five times more than any other candidate….and eight times more than this man has:
“Whatever ‘charisma’ is,” said Michael Gove last year, “I don’t have it.” How refreshing to find at least one MP with an accurate self-image. Gove declared his candidacy to shut BoJo out of the campaign. Don’t expect him to over-exert himself as a runner: whoever wins is going to have to give him a big job come what may. Even if it’s Theresa May.
At the Home Office, May raised eyebrows three years ago by appointing G4S to some government contracts. Her timing was also odd: she chose to do this on the same day Chris ‘pondlife’ Grayling declared, over at Justice, that the security company should go on a blacklist as a result of their fraudulent invoices and myriad cockups.
May claimed at one point that she had “not been aware” of G4S failures at the Olympics in 2012, and later while the serial fraudsters worked for the Justice. If that’s true, then she must have been the only person at Westminster who wasn’t in the loop. Indeed, her alleged ignorance is particularly surprising given Met sources insist she knew of their doubts about G4S in late 2011. They told her, you see. She being the Home Secretary an’ all.
The blogosphere assertion that her husband Philip May works for or has shares in G4S is bogus: it is further alleged that he has a large investment in Prudential ( which has been a shareholder in the company) but that would apply to thousands of people over 55 across Britain. And I did have a good, senior source in Prudential at the time who insisted his shareholding is minimal.
But one red herring does not produce clear blue water: last January, another scandal broke over the company’s care home ‘child prison’ contract with Justice – after the BBC ran a documentary showing serious abuse of residents by G4S. There were predictable calls for May’s resignation (it comes under her remit) but little attention was paid to the security schiesters’ fate. Two months ago, the the MoJ announced that – yet again – it would take back control of G4S from the Medway centre involved. Theresa May was a comment-free zone.
The East Midlands police board has confessed to “expressing doubts” to the Home Office about their experience of working with G4S. But May seems oblivious to this: as of last week, the company still claimed a ‘major strategic partnership’ with the police in that region. Lincolshire police commissioner Mark Jones, however, has said he ‘refuses to rule out changes to the contract between police and G4S who provide a number of services, including manning the central call centre and issuing firearm certificates.’ It seems Jones doubts the wisdom of giving a bunch of crooked clowns control over gun issuance. But again, Theresa’s lips are sealed.
I have posted several times since 2011 to query why defrauding the taxpayer and hiring incompetent layabout bully-boys has not banished G4S from all areas of government and public service. The three outstanding issues here are straightforward and deserve to be answered by any person vying to be PM: why does May never criticise G4S, why did she appoint them after a history of incompetence, and why did she lie about ‘ignorance’ of the company’s wrongdoing?
I remain convinced that somewhere in the G4S saga, crony capitalism and corrupt contract awards are involved. And it is hard to deny that such a way of working is very much in May’s DNA: she is quick to protect anything or anyone in the Establishment from criticism in general and police/legal investigation in partcular.
She boobed badly (in setting up a child abuse inquiry into historic allegations of paedophilia in Westminster) by giving Baroness Butler-Sloss the Chair role. She is in fact the sister of former attorney general, the late Sir Michael Havers….of whose guilt in covering up child sex abuse at Elm House I do not doubt for a second. To suggest top-gun Theresa didn’t grasp that link is akin to suggesting that David Cameron didn’t grasp the “adavantages” of having Andy Coulson as his head of Comms.
This brings us neatly to the pulled Telegraph piece, which you can read in full here. The extracts below, I think, speak for themselves:
Oh dear. And I would also emphasise this one, which suggests Ms May could be Edward Heath having taken the My Hyde potion: ‘a vivid picture of a secretive, rigid, controlling, even vengeful minister, so unpleasant to colleagues that a dread of meetings with her was something that cabinet members from both parties could bond over‘.
If you were a UKipper, that Home Office record would be enough to make you think hard about whether the recent referendum hadn’t been a complete waste of time when it comes to ‘control of our borders’. And to that, you’d have to add her pre-referendum pro Brexit betrayal for a Remain position (she thought they were going to win) and post referendum claim that she’s just the gal to extract tough reforms from Brussels. A bit of a Freudian slip that: we’ve left, Tessie love. The job now is to invoke Article 50. Which May doubts “will happen this year”. SFX sound of dragging feet and sharp, long fingernails cutting through the exit doorjambs of the EU.
Theresa May, I conclude, is unpleasant, unpopular, promises much, delivers little, is riddled with bollocks, tasteless slimey, and is no good. She is beneath mediocre. She is tapioca. If you want four more years of tapioca pudding, vote TM. If you don’t, contact your MPs and tell them. If your MP is a Labour person, ask when the Opposition Front Bench is going to nail this woman to the cross she so richly deserves.
Better still, examine Andrea Leadsom more closely. I couldn’t care less about either the Tories or Labour any more, but I do care about British citizens not becoming slaves. In that context, in my opinion Leadsom is far and away the best choice.
The Slog 