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  1. Politics
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7 June 2018

36 thoughts about Nadine Dorries’ tweet about David Davis

What? Just... what?

By Jonn Elledge

Oh, wizard:

I have some thoughts.

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1. Is this meant to be a threat?

2. If so, what is the nature of this threat?

3. Are we talking taking out in the Lee Harvey Oswald sense, or taking out in the Scottish indie band Franz Ferdinand sense?

4. Does Nadine Dorries imagine that the SAS trains its operatives in crack dating skills?

5. Because, if anyone from Endemol is reading, I think people would watch that show.

6. Assuming Dorries intends the other form of taking people out, who does she imagine he will be taking out, and how does she imagine that he will be taking them out?

7. Only, if it’s the entire Remain electorate, that may take a while.

8. And if it’s the EU’s negotiating team, I would have thought that this is going to be harder now that David Davis has resigned.

9. Oh! He hasn’t resigned.

10. When I started writing this he was still resigning.

11. Not like Davis to threaten to resign and then not in fact resign.

12. I hope he’s okay.

13. Is this what Dorries meant by, “He’s trained to survive”?

14. Is this him surviving in the sense of “not stepping pointlessly over a cliff while shouting, ‘Don’t worry lads, I’ve got this one’“?

15. To be fair, the SAS thing is hugely important to Davis’ own sense of himself, in a way that’s not even slightly reminiscent of Gareth from The Office.

16. He’s a very serious man. Look:

17. It’s just that he’s a massive, massive defence expert, as this quote from a 2005 interview with the Telegraph shows:

 “Get me D1, D2, D3 briefings on reactions to a terrorist attack.” To an aide, he shouts: “Call X – he’ll be at MI5,” then tells us: “You didn’t hear that. I know lots of spooks.”

18. As does this one:

Although his nose has been broken five times, he still somehow manages to look debonair.

19. He’s a very serious person all round, really:

When he was demoted by IDS, he hit back, saying darkly: “If you’re hunting big game, you must make sure you kill with the first shot.”

20. To be honest, while I hesitate to recommend you visit a rival website, you should read that entire interview, it’s amazing.

21. This isn’t strictly about the tweet, but what is going on with Nadine Dorries’ header image?

22. Is her latest heart-warming historical tome really about a street called “Lovely Lane”?

23. Isn’t that a bit on the nose?

24. Like writing a detective story in which Tallulah Dame shows up at Jack Hardboiled’s office on Mean Street.

25. Is the book about the mothers or the nurses?

26. Or are the mothers also nurses?

27. I mean that’d feel a bit much, but does it really seem implausible from a woman who’d write a book set on Lovely Lane?

28. Oh god it’s the third in a series. From Amazon:

29. “It is 1953 and five very different girls are arriving at the nurses’ home in Lovely Lane, Liverpool, to start their training at St Angelus Hospital.”

30. “St Angelus.”

Image: WB.

31. Is there are five of them, why are there only four on the cover?

32. Who is missing? Is it Dana, who has escaped from her family farm on the west coast of Ireland? Or Victoria, who is running away from a debt-ridden aristocratic background? Or bitchy Celia Forsyth? Or-

33. Anyway. Davis isn’t resigning, thus rendering this entire stupid thing I’ve just written even more pointless than it already was.

34. Rather like Brexit, amirite?

35. Still. The thought occurs that just as Britain is doomed forever to remain both inside and outside the European Union, the Brexit secretary is doomed forever to remain both inside and outside the Cabinet.

36. Fitting.

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Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
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