Hapless Jeremy proves yet again what a… Hunt he is

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"Who are you?", 2012 Olympics, BBC, bell-end, Borat, Buckingham Palace, Conservative, Culture, Culture Secretary, Diamond Jubilee, Duke of Edinburgh, government, health, Health Secretary, Her Majesty, James Naughtie, Jeremy Hunt, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Mr Bean, News Corporation, News International, Olympics, Parliament, people, politics, Queen, Radio 4, Rupert Murdoch, Secretary of State, Today programme, Tories, Tory, tree, Vox Political

Not the right kind of tree-hugger: This is an artist’s impression of what Jeremy Hunt looked like, hiding behind a tree to avoid being seen going to a meeting with Rupert Murdoch.

It is not a good time to be Jeremy Hunt.

“When is?” I hear you cry. Fair point. The reactions of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh certainly seem to have put the Health Secretary in a state.

He was at a smart Buckingham Palace event, arranged to thank everyone involved in the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, which took place while he was Culture Secretary. He decided this was the moment to put his greatest talent on display.

Clearly, it wasn’t his wit. No, I refer to his talent for making a faux pas – or, in English, a bloody fool of himself.

“I read about a Japanese tourist who said afterwards how wonderful our Queen must be to take part in that, as they would never get their emperor to jump out of the plane,” he told Her Majesty. Faced with an irrelevant comment about a completely different event, she paused, smiled politely, shrugged, and moved on.

Then the Duke of Edinburgh turned up. You may remember he had quite a rough time during the Diamond Jubilee, contracting an infection that hospitalised him for several days. As a result, he probably saw most of it on TV but – clearly – the then-Culture Secretary hadn’t made the slightest impression on him as the first thing he said was, “Who are you?”

Hunt managed to spit out some information about his current job, and that he was Culture Secretary during the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, only to have the Duke respond: “Well they do move you people on a lot.”

We are led to believe Mr Hunt was embarrassed by the whole episode. What makes it worse is that he might have gained a bit more recognition if he had mentioned some of the other public disasters in which he has been involved.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls: Mr Hunt’s bell-end landed in a passing lady’s lap. Oh dear.

Perhaps he should have said, “I’m the fool who went ringing a bell to announce the start of the Olympics, only to have the end fall off and hit a passing lady in the lap”?

Or: “I’m the twit who arrived at a meeting with Rupert Murdoch – a gentleman with whom I have long-standing ties, even though he’s being investigated by an official inquiry ordered by my government – but, finding a multitude of press photographers there and not wanting to be seen publicly with the head of NewsCorp… hid behind a tree. One that was too narrow to stop them from spotting me.”

At least he had the good taste not to mention the moment when James Naughtie mispronounced his surname, live on national radio. The use of the C-word would have been beyond the pale.

(Although, it might have won him the recognition he wanted from the Duke).

Perhaps David Cameron would have been better off introducing into his Cabinet some faces that were more recognisable?

Yachting his copy book

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Adam Werrity, Coalition, comedy, Conservative, Daily Mirror, David Cameron, Department for Education, Department of Education, Diamond Jubilee, government, HM The Queen, humour, Liam Fox, Michael Gove, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Parliament, people, politics, Queen, Robert Maxwell, Tories, Tory, yacht

“There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile,
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together until he fell off his yacht.”

It would be wrong to suggest that Michael Gove is crooked; indeed it would be stretching a point to suggest he was even bent in any way – although I do think that the Conservative Party is long overdue for another legover crisis and that Gove should be at the centre of it when it happens, if only to prove which way he swings (so to speak).

The only whisper of any kind of interpersonal wrongdoing that we’ve had in this government so far is the relationship between former Defence Secretary Liam Fox and a gentleman called Adam Werrity who seemed to be such a fan that he had to follow Dr Fox wherever he went, claiming to be a member of his entourage who could get the then-cabinet minister to make certain arrangements in return for a bung. But that was more The Financial Arrangement That Dare Not Speak Its Name.

However, the rhyme at the top of this piece was the last time a yacht entered the news in any meaningful way, when the former Daily Mirror owner (and crook) Robert Maxwell disappeared from his, back in 1991(ish). I quote it to mark Gove’s latest lunatic idea – that we, the public, should buy the Queen a new yacht to mark her Diamond Jubilee.

This boat would cost £60 million, apparently – a million for every year she’s been on the throne. It would be a pointless present because, at Her Majesty’s age, she’s hardly going to be able to steer it.

The suggestion prompts me to wonder whether this is something that Tories do habitually. I mean, would he spend his own money on such lavishments?

Perhaps he’s trying to tell us that his Department for Education and Science is bucking the national trend by making money hand over fist. This would be strange behaviour for an organisation that is supposed to spend money in the most cost-effective way possible to give the nation’s young the best education possible, but I accept that in the light of my previous observations, the thought of Gove doing things ‘hand over fist’ would explain a lot.

In fact, it seems to me, the only part of the UK that has been expanding recently is the Coalition front bench. David Cameron in particular seems to be swelling up like a balloon and it occurs to me that, should matters progress as far as a ceremony to hand this proposed yacht over to Her Majesty, there’s a very real possibility that he’ll end up sliding off it.

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