Really?

There are some people who, when they open their mouths, you just know are going to lie. The world of politics particularly is packed to the gunnels with these types and yet ironically, in the British Parliament, the words "lie" or "liar are strictly forbidden. Should you dare to utter them the bouncers move in and kick you out. The ban on those words is the Houses of Parliament equivalent of "no jeans, no trainers".

Examples of supreme practitioners of the art of lying are Blair, Bush, Johnson and Trump but they have all got away with it - or thought they had - by employing various tactics. With Blair it is to fake sincerity - once you can fake sincerity you've got it made, said turn of the last century, all round smart bottom Jean Giradoux.

With Bush it was because he was plainly an idiot and so everyone just said "Aw, bless!", assuming he lied because he'd read his crayoned script wrong.

With Johnson the public reaction is "Wow! Ha, ha, ha! That's just our wacky Boris - he was great on HIGNFY you know?" Trump, meanwhile, has so brainwashed half of the US having lied from the very second he took office - witness his view on the size of the crowd at his inauguration - that he can now say ANYTHING and Bubba and the good ole boys down at the trailer park will believe him.

Now, this is just my opinion, nothing more, I believe our Home Secretary, Priti Patel, is on this roll of dishonour. 

She was on the Devil's Lantern this morning giving a glowing tribute to murdered MP Sir David Amess. There have been, quite rightly, lots of touching eulogies for Sir David (see this Blog) by those who knew him and loved him and all plucked at the heartstrings but when Ms Patel joined in I thought "Hmm, that dog don't hunt!"

She described the late Southend West MP as "a dear, dear friend" and said they not only worked together on lots of issues but she often popped down to Southend to see him.

I may well be wrong, I often am, but I think that's a load of bollocks! Why? Well, Sir David was, by all accounts, a warm, caring person, a loving, family man and a man of honourable and consistent principles. He was content just to be a backbencher, serving his constituents and working tirelessly to fight on matters in which he strongly believed, such as tackling fuel poverty and eradicating animal cruelty.

Ms Patel, by contrast, is, in my opinion, a hard-faced sociopath who has trodden on everything and everyone in her way in a rabid obsession to climb the greasy pole. 

She has been censured for bullying her staff and she used to work for British American Tobacco which funded a brutal dictatorship in Burma and exloited child labour in Nigeria.

She was a supporter of re-introducing the death penalty and in the House voted against same-sex marriage and banning the detention of pregnant women.

If all that wasn't enough, she broke ministerial protocol as Home Secretary for a second time by serving as an advisor for Viasat at a cool £1,000-an-hour!

Do she and Sir David really sound like peas in a pod? Can you honestly see them having the same goals and working together on loads of issues? Could you really see them hanging out together as "dear, dear friends", popping in and out of each other's houses on a regular basis?

Hmmmmm.........

Dear Ms Patel,

I heard you describe on television today the late, lamented MP Sir David Amess as "a dear, dear friend" with whom you had worked on numerous issues.

You also said you would often pop down to see him in his Southend constituency.

For the record, please would you supply me with a record of the number of issues you worked on "together" and the number of visits you made to see him in the last 12 months.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Reg.