If you feel your life is a little bit cold at the moment, Geoff Hoon must be finding it positively Siberian.
After yesterday’s failed attempt, with Patricia Hewitt, to stir up a leadership challenge in his party, he is now having to suffer the full scorn and ridicule of his colleagues.
I have surprised myself by spending today feeling some sympathy for his situation. There are many things that just do not add up.
It seems almost inconceivable, that someone with Hoon’s experience of top level politics would have been so inept as to stir up such a controversy, if he were not to have been assured of success and support in the first place.
Watching him being interviewed on Newsnight last night, it was obvious from his body language, he was deeply disappointed at the way things had turned out and was holding back on revealing the true story. His admission of failure was a rare thing to see from a politician with his pedigree.
Even though the media has spent today revealing off-the-record comments from senior politicians and speculating about certain members of the Cabinet being spineless and performing U-turns, I doubt the real story will be told until Mr Hoon leaves the world of politics – which could be sooner than he originally planned – and publishes his memoirs.
The whole charade, however, does seem to have been carefully choreographed by someone with a skill for manipulation of both the media and politicians and the talent of being able to provide himself with a plausible denial of any knowledge of the incident in public.
There are not many within the world of Parliament who are so skilled at such dark arts….
Who could be the Puppet Master?….the show continues!!
