Ding, ding, ding! It’s fight club time in the Tory party. In the blue corner it’s Simon Hoare. And in the, er, other blue corner it’s Dehenna Davison and Sir Iain Duncan Smith. The subject of today’s rumble in the Westminster jungle is Will Smith’s jab at Chris Rock at last night’s Academy Awards ceremony. Well, they do say politics is showbiz for ugly people…
Hoare was early out of the blocks this morning to engage in some ritual macho chest-beating. The Northern Ireland select committee chair scoffed, ‘I’d just hope if someone thought it in good taste to make a joke at the expense of a medical condition of my wife then I’d get up and lamp him.’ An early jab from the Dorset destroyer: first blood to the only Hoare in parliament.
Before a knockout punch could be landed however, two more Tories threw themselves in the ring. First on the scene was the Grandee himself: Sir Iain Duncan Smith. The former Conservative leader clocked his colleague with a neat counterpunch on GB News, telling viewers:
Well, I’d find that an amusing sight to watch Simon Hoare… he doesn’t look to me like much of a pugilist, but anyway, the point I would simply say is… I don’t think anybody has the right to get up and hit anybody else, whatever the circumstances are… I wouldn’t recommend anybody takes action into their own hands.
Ouch. Bishop Auckland backbencher Dehenna Davison then jumped in as the countdown ticked down. The Red Wall poster-girl took to Twitter to condemn Smith for his slap, telling the Fresh Prince star of her love of his performance in The Pursuit of Happyness. She wrote to invite him to speak at her All Party Parliamentary Group on One Punch Assaults to ‘discuss’ her campaign, asking if he would attend to ‘hear the stories of those who have lost loved ones in a single punch.’
No one yet from the Men in Black millionaire. In the bout of Hoare versus IDS and DD on whether Smith was right or not, Steerpike judges the dynamic duo to be the winners by technical knockout.
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