SPIN BLOCK MAX FACTOR : Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is said to be “stressed to the max” and in danger of overdosing on protein shakes today due to current events getting in the way of his study of The Ladybird Book of Geography.
“He hadn’t even got to the countries that start with A,” a FCO insider tells LCD Views. “He was just about finished marvelling at the front cover of the book. It’s a shame he likes pictures so much. He stood a chance of discovering Afghanistan before it all kicked off this week while he was on holiday.”
But kick off this week it did and sadly for Dom, and the thousands of endangered Afghanis who risked their lives to work with British forces over the last 20 years, Dom was MIA. On a beach in Crete enjoying what some have unsympathetically called an unearned holiday.
Happily though the luminaries of the Tory intellectual elite are rallying to his cause. No less an intellectual giant than David Davis even taking to Twitter to express his disgust at people criticising Raab for failing to foresee an event two decades in the making. Davis is well placed to provide sympathy. No one who saw his outstanding preparations as Brexit Secretary can forget his achievements. Before it all got too hard and he buggered off.
Random back benchers are also coming to Raab’s aide. With one even commenting that “Dominic Raab’s only crime was to care too much about his holiday”. A defence with which anyone who has achieved one of the great offices of state, and then couldn’t be bothered to actually do it, can have sympathy.
Of course the unsung victim in all this is perhaps Matt Hancock. He must be wondering right now what someone has to do to get fired from Johnson’s cabinet these days? It wasn’t like this in his day.