A video has surfaced of an opposition politician telling a Home Office minister what to do if you botch the job. The politician complains of “chaos” and government ministers who “simply don’t know what is going on in their Department”.
Yes, it’s Theresa May taking on the government in a 2004 episode of Question Time.
Then a shadow cabinet minister, May lambasts the immigration minister, Beverley Hughes, for not taking responsibility, being clueless, and scolds the government for losing control of its immigration policy.
Sound familiar anyone?
In a stunning premonition, May begins: “I think we see a degree of chaos in what is happening and what is perfectly clear… is that we have in this government ministers who simply don’t know what’s going on in their departments.
“We have departments that deny the truth and have to have it dragged out of them.”
Hughes, a minister in the New Labour government, had made contradictory statements over her knowledge of a visa “scam”. Shortly after the episode aired, she resigned for “unwittingly misleading” parliament.
In the clip, May continues: “I’m actually sick and tired of government ministers in this Labour Government who simply blame other people when something goes wrong and are not willing to take responsibility for what is happening under this government, and their decisions.”
Nothing, of course, like the Windrush fiasco, in which key documents proving Commonwealth citizens came legally to the UK were destroyed by the Home Office. Nor the fact that the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, is fielding the attack on a hostile environment policy set in place by her predecessor, one Theresa May. Or the fact that May implied at Prime Minister’s Questions that the decision to destroy the documents was taken by New Labour, when in fact the operational decision was taken after she became home secretary in 2010. Number of ministerial Windrush resignations? Zero.
Here’s the video in its delightful and excrucriating entirety:
In 2004 Theresa May said “I find it extraordinary that a Minister isn’t willing just to step up to the plate and take responsibility… I’m actually sick and tired of Government Ministers who simply blame other people when something goes wrong”.
I agree. pic.twitter.com/zv2Dlx6Q8B
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) April 19, 2018
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