Sunak's Conservative Party defects are now visible for all to see
Ian Dunt writes: ‘The Prime Minister’s mishandling of the Frank Hester racism row did not actually begin this week, but a fortnight ago’ standards. He is operating with a degree of basic incompetence which we had previously thought possible, but never expected to actually see demonstrated in practice. It’s an object lesson in how not to deal with a political crisis.
Unsurprisingly, he failed to learn either lesson, so now he finds himself in similar circumstances. Hester, the Tory party’s biggest donor, is quoted as saying that Labour MP Diane Abbott made him “want to hate all black women” and she “should be shot”. Hester has apologised for making “rude” comments.Watching ministers in front of the TV cameras yesterday, it was easy to feel as if you might have gone insane. There’s really not much further to go in the racism or extremism stakes.
By this stage, he had sacrificed the loyalty of anyone asked to go out to bat for him during the course of the day. Out they had gone, Stride included, to say the unspeakable and defend the indefensible, sabotaging any sense of themselves as serious people. And it was all for nothing, because by late afternoon the Prime Minister had capitulated anyway, in a manner that was entirely predictable from the beginning.
So this is the new line: Hester’s apology showed that he was not a racist so the matter is settled. But that is barely a stronger position than the one the party held on Tuesday and it does not make sense on the basis of the admission Sunak has himself made. Hester’s apology, which Downing Street’s demand that we “move on” relies upon, stated that his “criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.
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