Beadle’s About ran from 1986 to 1996. In it, Jeremy Beadle would blunder round the United Kingdom playing elaborate practical jokes on members of the public. Labour seem absolutely determined to stage a remake of this but with Lord Chancellor David Lammy in the title role: ‘Watch Out, Lammy’s About!’
On his current track record, Lammy will be apologising for things before he’s even done them just to save time
Whether it’s overseeing the random releases of foreign perverts amongst the general public, or accidentally misleading the House of Commons about whether he was buying a suit or not, Lammy’s appetite for chaos seems to know no bounds. Indeed, he has now created his own backlog of apologies for how he’s dealt with prison releases. He was back in Parliament today, answering questions and equivocating about the last time he was there, and managed to mislead the Commons again. On his current track record, Lammy will be apologising for things before he’s even done them just to save time.
Last week, despite being asked again and again about accidental releases, Lammy had kept schtum. He had apparently chosen not to tell everyone the teeny little detail that a sex criminal was on the loose because he hadn’t been able to clarify his asylum status and therefore didn’t want to give ‘an inaccurate or misleading or incomplete picture to the House.’ Because what he did provide was clarity itself, eh? To extend the picture metaphor, what Lammy presented to the House was about as clear as a paint-by-numbers completed by Abu Hamza whilst on the Nemesis Inferno rollercoaster at Thorpe Park.
Lammy was keen to spread the blame as broadly as he could and in a classic act of false magnanimity invited Robert Jenrick to ‘join him in his apology’. As he did so his junior underling Jake Richards, whom Labour selectors found in a rejected props bin on the set of a Muppet Christmas Carol, pouted in the direction of the opposition benches.
Of course the apology wasn’t really an apology. More excuses piled up; ‘No Justice Secretary could prevent every mistake’ pleaded Lammy, as if this was some comfort. Again and again he referred to how complex the issue and the processes it entailed were. This would carry more weight if Lammy didn’t seem to find everything ‘complex’. It was easily his most used word. Perhaps that just what it’s like to be David Lammy. The buttons in a lift are ‘complex’, getting socks round the right way are too. How his morning Ready Brek arrives defies explanation.
Unsurprisingly Robert Jenrick did not take up Lammy’s invitation to join him in an apology. Instead he pointed out the difference between the defiant Lammy of last week and the semi-contrite figure who’d arrived today. He quoted his own colleagues back at him; terms like ‘rank incompetence’ and ‘cowardly’ were used. Jenrick pointed out that Lammy couldn’t even get the name of the woman heading his inquiry correct, referring to Lynne Owens as ‘Anne’. Unfortunately for Lammy, Jenrick had also discovered that someone called Anne Owens is appearing in Alice in Wonderland this Panto season; ‘perhaps she helped him with his performance last week?’, he asked.
Still, when this run of Lammy’s About ends and the Prime Minister ushers his career into the Leadbeater pod with the nasal delivery of the words, ‘I have full confidence in the Justice Secretary’, at least we can be absolutely sure that Lammy does have a future in pantomime. Just a few more accidental releases and Widow Twanky beckons.
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