The strange mystery of 10 Downing Street.

 The strange mystery of 10 Downing Street.

There are a good number of comedy script-writers who would give anything for the latest goings-on at 10 Downing Street. This otherwise very quiet and unassuming address off Whitehall in Central London is the setting for perhaps the funniest sitcom in the history of TV situation comedies. Could there be anything more amusing than the sight of a whole procession of politicians walking in and out of that famous black door where many of the Prime Minister's predecessors have made their very discreet, polite and formal speeches to the nation on matters of state and anything of vital importance? 

But the last week or so there has been a severe case of turbulence, uproar and controversy which could be an apt description for any working week in the land of mainstream politics. The fact is that the UK government are in a state of flux, anguished soul-baring, hasty apology, complete embarrassment. Then again was it always thus. How many more times have the musical-hall comedians, who do most of their gigs at Westminster go off the deep end and plunge the whole of Britain into yet more crisis and another a barrel load of difficulties? 

This week has been particularly notable for its sheer political incompetence, the tactlessness, the blundering idiocy and complete lack of any diplomacy. Now the truth is that politicians do like to embellish the truth when we know that they're just covering their backs in a sea of falsehood. In a court of law this would be regarded as blatant perjury, a pack of lies and outright foolhardiness. If the court jesters who follow Boris Johnson around like a troupe of medieval troubadours will keep making a spectacle of themselves then we can hardly be blamed for turning our eyes away from the scene of the crime. Because slowly but surely Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister and his cabinet are sinking into a muddy morass of muddled thinking and indecisive bumbling. Or maybe not.

And yet we are in another fine mess. The whole of the 2020, which should be written off as some disastrous liability, is deep into the penultimate month of the year and still we are moving forward gradually towards some kind of breathing space. The coronavirus has quite literally crushed our hopes for the year, a disease so uncontrollably fatal and deadly that the history books are just waiting for it to end. The number of fatalities are disturbingly increasing but that R number bodes well. 

We've now exhausted so many possibilities and probabilities that any forecasts have been hurled out of the window and re-written over and over again. We've all seen those horrendous emergency hospital operations, innumerable patients with oxygen masks hanging over their faces, ventilators plugged in and remarkably industrious surgeons hovering over the stricken with deep anxiety etched onto their faces. It would become progressively worse with every passing day since late March. 

Now though Priti Patel, the former Secretary of the State for the Home Department, has never been short of an opinionated word or two. In fact she positively revels in her forthrightness, a woman with little in the way of kindness in her heart to her colleagues and a foul mouth to boot. Patel was the woman who swore quite bluntly at her Cabinet acquaintances who are now no longer in her good books. Then she insulted them with yet another volley of poisonous vitriol, sharp-tongued comments that turned the air at Tory headquarters quite literally blue. 

We could be missing something here but weren't politicians supposed to get on with each other when the lights went out in the lobbies and corridors of the Palace of Westminster? Aren't they supposed to make up and just agree to disagree when the heckling and haranguing was over? But not this time. It's all very well shouting, yelling, sticking two fingers up at each other and generally hating each other's guts. But this is animosity, acrimony and contempt on a much grander scale. 

Priti Patel lashed out at her so-called chums with such gargantuan force that it was probably just as well that there was hardly anybody on those fabled green benches to hear the vicious onslaught. The ones who should have been in the House of Comedy to hear the latest Max Miller material were trying hard to absolve themselves of any blame. In fact they must have felt so humiliated that a vast majority were probably hiding behind the backbenchers. 

We have now reached the point where all of the daily medical bulletins from Downing Street are beginning to get all mixed up with what passes for factual accuracy. But Mrs Patel put her considerable feet in it when quite clearly nobody really wanted to hear about her latest miserable, expletive-laden beef about Covid 19. You can only listen to so many grievances before outright anger and boredom set in. 

Then after a couple of days deliberation Patel backed down, a woman pleading for forgiveness and contrition. She didn't mean to say what she said and the whole coronavirus is just getting to her. The pressure is almost unbearable and she simply spoke in the heat of the moment. But this is inexcusable behaviour, showing a deplorable lack of any judgment and she should have been put into detention and forced to write a thousand lines after school. And yet this is all about damage limitation so this could be time for careful reflection. You sense vast quantities of humble pie will be eaten by Mrs Patel. 

Then there's the ongoing case of Dominic Cummings, a man so hypocritical and insincere that any mention of his name should never be aired in public again. Cummings, allegedly Chief Adviser to Boris Johnston, took himself off to the fair county of Durham during the summer when everybody knew he shouldn't have been anywhere near a motorway. So Cummings just ignored his well-intentioned advice and became public enemy number one, a victim of not only his inadequacy as friend of the Cabinet but the most evil of all pantomime villains. 

But Cummings happily drove all the way to his Durham family, maintained that he was just on a  mission of mercy and simply the caring face of British politics. The Cummings argument was that a family member was ill and he'd become the compassionate face of British politics. Then he got back into his car and, in all innocence, paid a fleeting visit to Barnard Castle, news that was greeted with national disapproval and public hostility. How on earth did he get away that one? The cheek of it all. 

Last week that one incident came back to bite him quite painfully. After another explosive row with Johnson and his band of merry brothers and sisters, Cummings left through the door marked exit, resigned in disgrace and found that any of his sympathetic listeners who might have been backing him had just left the building and weren't coming back. Sorry, Dominic. This is your fault and we won't bail you out this time. You're in this on your own, mate. 

So, awkwardly carrying out his box of documents and files with the most sheepish look on his face, Dominic Cummings went out into Central London to look for the nearest Pret A Manger coffee shop doubtless pouring out his heart to anybody who might be prepared to listen. His desk was clear ready for the next occupant and Cummings was yesterday's man. Then he realised that nobody much cares for his welfare since he didn't give two hoots about Britain's welfare let alone his family's well being. 

And the political merry-go-round keeps spinning around like a child's toy. The door of 10 Downing Street which thought it had seen everything, now looks in desperate need of oiling. Ministers are leaving and entering so frequently that if anybody hears a creaking noise in Whitehall they'll know the source. It all seems like some tastelessly absurd Whitehall farce where nobody loses their trousers but the only people who emerge from this potty madness with any credit are those who have kept a respectful silence. Who would ever want to become a politician? It is indeed a mug's game.