In his bid to reverse Brexit, Lord Adonis has demonstrated few qualms in using any weapon at his disposal. For years now Britain’s most ironically-titled peer has been keeping up a one man Twitter war, stalking the jungles of social media like some Japanese warrior fighting a campaign that ended 30 years ago. Now though, it appears his latest cynical attack on a member of the government has backfired in spectacular style.
Adonis, who has previously demonstrated little interest in green issues, suddenly found himself most exercised at the beginning of the week when he saw the government embroiled in difficulties over its Environment Bill. A series of tweets were fired off aimed at minister Zac Goldsmith, claiming that he had ‘plans to allow water companies to pump raw sewage into rivers and the sea,’ that he ‘proposes pumping raw sewage into rivers and the sea’ and that he was the ‘son of the worst British politician of the last generation besides Farage.’
While the attack on his deceased father must have stung, it was the disinformation about the legislation which Goldsmith trained his guns on. Watched by a smirking Adonis, Goldsmith attacked his ‘malicious falsehood’ that the government was encouraging sewage discharge, listing various protections within the bill after delivering a stinging attack on his Labour opponent. He told his fellow peers that:
Over the course of dozens of tweets, the noble Lord was trying to make his—let us face it—not always balanced Twitter followers believe something about me and the Government that is simply not true, and which he knows to be untrue. Indeed, by suggesting that we are making it easier for companies to pollute our waters, he was spreading a grotesque inversion of the truth. I understand why he has done so; it is nothing to do with the environment, an issue on which he has almost no record whatever. It is about wanting people to believe that Brexit means more sewage in our waters. He knows that this is not true—this is a matter of fact, not a matter of opinion—but he also knows that, because of his position, many will believe him. Some will be driven into a frenzy of rage, as we have seen—rage based on a blatant untruth. The noble Lord may have been driven to distraction by Brexit, but he is not a stupid person; he wants his words to have consequences. In this debate on sewage, the noble Lord has absolutely covered himself in the stuff—and I say shame on him.
Even Green peer Jenny Jones, no fan of the Tories herself, weighed in to point out that Adonis had never engaged in the Environment Bill, writing herself on Twitter that the ‘House was fed up with him. And shocked.’ In the chamber Lord Cormack, that ornament of the constitution, labelled his counterpart’s actions a ‘disgrace,’ demanding that ‘if the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, had any part at all in encouraging the deluging of some of our colleagues in verbal sewage, he should apologise.’
Adonis continued to tweet throughout the debate, ignoring the mounting irritation of his fellow peers and later declaring victory over the government in a series of crowing posts. His response to Goldsmith was to point out that the government was deflecting from the fact peers had forced him to back down on the Duke of Wellington’s amendment to the bill – a point the minister dodged.
Still, with the self-aggrandising, self-congratulating never knowingly-offline behaviour, it’s no surprise that Mr S hears of a new nickname for Adonis doing the tearoom rounds: Donald Trump without the hair.
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