Put a sock in it, Private Pike

CAN you think of anyone you would like to go away and shut up? Step forward Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, who embarrassed everyone by talking like a petulant schoolboy at a moment of international crisis. His riposte to Russia yesterday invoked a moment of acute national cringe: he will not easily be forgiven. Williamson is another top Tory promoted way above his talents. A cross between Alan Partridge and Private Pike, he has the sly, foxy look of a man with a high opinion of himself who has got by so far on what he perceives to be his glinting charm. His poverty of language and lack of statesmanship at a point of peril say everything about him, and none of it is good. Oh, hang on. This just in: the Kremlin has responded to him in kind. ‘Your mum is smelly,’ they said. Whatever can they mean? And how do they know!