WHAT WOULD YOU SACRIFICE : Mel Gibson, the senior civil servant at DExEU in charge of no-deal Brexit planning, has quit today, leaving a gaping skills gap in the ministry. And what with first David Davis, then Dominic Raab and now Stephen Barclay running the place, the gap was already a chasm.
“It was a total screw up,” an insider at DExEU told us on the condition of anonymity, “Mr Gibson’s family was supposed to be kept chained in the basement at all times. The only contact they were allowed to have with the outside world was for irregular food and some water. Now and then someone from the ERG would come and take a photo to provide Mr Gibson with proof of life.”
It’s believed Mr Gibson’s family were taken hostage early in his tenure as head of no-deal planning when it was realised that as soon as he understood what he was working on he would immediately quit.
“There’s to be an urgent internal inquiry to work out what went wrong,” the insider adds, “I mean it’s SNAFU daily here, but to lose the only leverage we had is catastrophic, even for us. I suspect the accidental release of Mr Gibson’s family probably happened when Chris Grayling ducked in to use the loo on his way to see a pizza retailer about ferry transport.”
GIven that the door to the basement dungeon where Mr Gibson’s family were being held, including his pet Labrador dog Barry, was positioned next to the gents, it’s highly likely he was involved.
”The ‘g’ has recently fallen off the door to the gents. Grayling presumably believed that actually ents were living behind it and choose the basement door instead. This explains how Mr Gibson’s family achieved their escape.”