MINISTER SAVAGES BORIS ‘THE BUFFOON’
Ex-foreign minister’s blast at PM, May and warring Tories in sensational memoir – serialised in Mail today
Boris Johnson’s Cabinet was rocked last night by an explosive political memoir revealing vicious Tory infighting.
The Prime Minister is one of the targets for a series of astonishing personal attacks from alan duncan, his deputy when he was foreign secretary.
Sir alan describes Mr Johnson as a ‘ buffoon’ and says they had a blazing row over a Press report about diplomats treating him as an ‘international joke’.
When Mr Johnson asked: ‘ Why don’t they take me seriously?’ Sir alan replied: ‘Look in the ****ing mirror!’ Serialised in the daily Mail,
In The Thick Of It is as candid, caustic and colourful as the sensational Alan Clark Diaries of the 1990s. Sir Alan, who quit politics just 16 months ago, saw at first hand how the government of Theresa May, a friend since university, collapsed in chaos.
It is unprecedented for a politician to lift the lid on feuding in the corridors of power so soon after leaving office. Sir Alan calls:
■ Mr Johnson – ‘disloyal. He is an international stain on our reputation, a selfish, illdisciplined, shambolic, shameless clot’;
■ Priti Patel – ‘a nothing person, a complete and utter nightmare, the Wicked Witch of Witham’;
■ Theresa May – ‘a frightened rabbit, a cardboard cut-out, her social skills are sub-zero’;
■ Michael Gove – ‘an unctuous freak, a whacky weirdo’;
■ David Cameron – ‘too glib and (made) too many appointments from close associates’;
■ Philip Hammond – ‘Spock-like trampler over anyone else’s sensitivities, no feeling for the poor’;
■ Ex-Tory chairman Eric Pickles – ‘FLP (Fat Lump Pickles) might get into an (airline) economy seat – he’d never get out’;
■ Labour’s Emily Thornberry – ‘ graceless frump’;
■ Former defence minister Tobias Ellwood – ‘childish twit’;
■ Dowager Duchess of Rutland – ‘haughty old boot’.
Many biographies gloss over the personal and political tensions in the corridors of power and have little impact as a result. But Sir Alan’s memoirs are in the style of great political diaries like those by Clark or Chips Channon that capture the spirit of the age.
The ‘look in the ****ing mirror!’ row occurred when Mr Johnson accused Sir Alan of being behind the Press report that he was seen as an ‘international joke’.
Sir Alan says Mr Johnson flew into a rage after summoning him to his office for a dressing-down.
‘We had a stand-up confrontation – he had completely popped,’ says Sir Alan, who denied being the source of the story.
He went on the attack and told Mr Johnson to admit the article was true – that he was a ‘joke’.
Sir Alan claims Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng agreed with him: ‘ He (Kwarteng) says Boris doesn’t appreciate that diplomacy is not about nice conversations with your friends: it’s about engaging with those who are awkward.’
He castigates Mr Johnson for his ‘ blatant self- serving ambition’ and says he knew none of the details on Brexit.
The Prime Minister had a ‘selfdeluding mock-romantic passion. He is a clown … an embarrassing buffoon … an international stain
‘She is a complete and utter nightmare’
on our reputation … ill- disciplined, shambolic, shameless clot… (an) egotistical showman’.
Sir Alan, who was MP for Rutland and Melton from 1992 until the last election and served on the Conservative front bench over a period of 18 years, criticises Home Secretary Miss Patel’s ‘dolled-up’ appearance on TV and says she ‘is a nothing person’.
He refers to a claim that a political analyst, the late Sir Anthony King of Essex University, had called an unnamed politician who studied there as having been ‘abysmal beyond measure’ as a student.
‘The Press named (ex Speaker) John Bercow, but it was in fact Priti Patel,’ claims Sir Alan, who adds: ‘ The Wicked Witch of Witham scores again.’
Mr Bercow and Miss Patel, MP for Witham in Essex, both studied politics at the university.
Sir Alan says she was not popular among officials when she was international development secretary: ‘ They hate Priti, mainly because she seems to hate all of them. She is a complete and utter nightmare.’
While publicly supporting Theresa May, Mr Johnson privately ‘despised’ her and was ‘only right behind her so as to push her off a cliff’, writes Sir Alan.
Mrs May does not escape criticism. She was ‘wooden … a frightened rabbit … cardboard cut-out. You never know what’s churning away beneath her undemonstrative demeanour. Her social skills are sub-zero’.
From the moment she lost her majority in the ‘ botched’ 2017 election, Mrs May led a ‘government of the walking dead’ with a ‘Cabinet of zombies’.
Sir Alan says Cabinet Office minister Mr Gove is a combination of ‘shameless and synthetic … an unctuous freak, a whacky weirdo both unappealing and untrustworthy’.
Accusing ex- chancellor Mr Hammond of breaking the Tories’ 2015 election pledge not to increase tax, he says: ‘He has no feeling whatsoever for people on low incomes, and is a Spock-like trampler over anyone else’s sensitivities’.
He claims Mr Hammond snubbed him as he left a Downing Street reception: ‘Philip Hammond swanks in through the back gate, and walks straight past me with his nose in the air. He doesn’t even say hello. He has no idea how to extend elementary courtesies.’
Sir Alan says ‘childish twit’ Mr Ellwood refused to speak to him over a perceived personal slight.
He castigates Miss Thornberry for failing to thank him after he helped her attend the funeral of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
‘Not a word of gratitude. It was as if she owned the place, she is a graceless frump.’
He says he fell out with the ‘virulently pro Leave’ Dowager Duchess of Rutland, aged 83, after he backed Remain in the 2016 EU referendum.
After the duchess called him ‘disgusting,’ Sir Alan observed: ‘She is a haughty old boot.’
‘Her social skills are sub-zero’