Shows of liberal incompetence

It is very rare for politicians to confess their faults and Rosie Duffield’s acknowledgement is an example to others.

Last time there was a purely Liberal administration, in 1912 three cabinet ministers were caught buying shares on the basis of insider information on a government contract – the

Chief Whip, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and, ahem, the Attorney General.

A number of London papers made some sharp comments and these gentlemen responded by suing Le Matin, much to the amusement of G K Chesterton: “I am so swift to seize affront/ my spirit is so high/whoever has affronted me/some foreigner must die/ I made a claim for damage/(For the Times has called me ‘thief’)/Against a paper in Alsace/A paper called Le Juif.”

Kipling was outraged when the offending Attorney General was then promoted to be Lord Chief Justice: “Well done; well done, Gehazi!/ Stretch forth thy ready hand,/ Thou barely ‘scaped from judgment,/ Take oath to judge the land/ Unswayed by gift of money/Or privy bribe, more base,/ Of knowledge which is profit/ In any market-place.”

Viewers of ‘A Very English Scandal’ were reminded of a second glorious episode in Liberal history – the shooting of a dog called Rinka by Andrew Newton. Newton claimed he had been hired by the leader of the Liberal Party, Jeremy Thorpe, to shoot Rinka’s owner, Thorpe’s former lover Norman Scott but his pistol had jammed.

A typical example of Liberal incompetence, one might think. Joe Egerton