I’M WITH STUPID: The man who hired a ferry company with no ferries is back. Chris Grayling is to head up the Intelligence committee. An intelligence committee with no intelligence, you might remark.
The return to public life of parliament’s little April Fools Day joke came as something of a surprise to Grayling. He was planning to retire and live a life of luxury after receiving the entire wealth of the Nigerian royal family via email.
However it is believed that the money never appeared, in fact his own not particularly hard earned cash mysteriously vanished. Grayling appealed to the Foreign Secretary for help, but unfortunately Dominic Raab neither had any useful contacts nor knew where Nigeria was.
Grayling will be responsible, among other things, for the Russia report. This document, believed to be highly sensitive (a euphemism for ‘damaging to the government’) is a political time bomb. Grayling’s natural sense of good timing and attention to detail will surely see copies sent to all the national newspapers within the week. Just in case, another copy will be sent, mistakenly, to Keir Starmer’s personal office printer.
With this degree of competence at the top, Grayling will do for intelligence what Brexit did for Anglo-European relations.
The appointment process was interesting, to say the least. During lockdown, teams of MPs have, like many of us, taken part in Zoom quizzes. The intelligence post was the booby prize for the worst performing team.
Grayling is, as ever, oblivious to all of this. His team – some of whom can actually write their own names – regards him as a kind of talisman. If ever there was a man who could snatch failure from the jaws of success, it is Grayling. He possesses the reverse of the Midas touch. The Sadim touch, if you will.
Stupid intelligence? It’s what you get with an oxymoron in charge.