Rats in a Sack: Is Nadine Dorries heading for the Strictly dancefloor?

Tom Tugendhat’s pointless bid for the Conservative Party leadership began with him unveiling his four-point slogan: “Together we can, unite the party. Rebuild Trust. Defeat Labour.”

Alas for the hapless Tugendhat, social media users spotted that, when a graphic breaking it down to four lines was displayed on his campaign website, the first letters spelled out ‘turd’. The following day the final line was changed to ‘Win back the country’, with the former soldier’s press team po-facedly briefing hacks that “online graphics are regularly altered as imagery and messaging are perfected during the early stages of a campaign”. 

Weirdly, one of Tommy T’s attributes praised by former minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan in a Times article endorsing him is that he is, apparently, “funny”.

The Conservative Party is currently advertising for a number of senior political advisors. The salary is only given as “competitive” but the skills required include a “fluent and clear written style”,” excellent communication skills” and “strong attention to detail”.

Perhaps Tugendhat could do with a bit of that help. Announcing he had secured the backing of former Northern Ireland secretary Karen Bradley – the one who admitted that she didn’t understand “people who are nationalists don’t vote for unionist parties and vice versa” – he posted on Twitter/X: “Me and Karen have worked together for many years.”

Whither Tugendhat’s expensive education (St Paul’s School, £15,636 per term)? After criticism online, he quickly corrected it to “Karen and I…”

Robert Jenrick, meanwhile, launched his campaign with a slick video which featured, for some reason, Ed Miliband playing a ukulele. There was also footage of a random member of the public approaching Jenrick in a field to tell him “you’re my missus’ favourite”, a thing which definitely naturally occurred and was in no way staged. There’s months of this left!

Anne Jenkin, a member of the House of Lords, certainly has her, er, niche interests.

This week she submitted a written question to the government, asking “whether they consider Bondage, Domination, Sadism and Masochism to be a protected characteristic within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010”.

This follows an earlier question asking “what assessment they have made of the motion proposed at the PCS Union’s annual conference 2023 requesting the establishment of a staff support network for Bondage, Domination, Sadism and Masochism” and another questioning “what is their policy on civil servants wearing fetish clothing in the workplace”.

Jenkin, of course, takes the Conservative whip.

Demanding the perpetrator of the horrific killings in Southport be named, Darren Grimes, GB News presenter, posted on Twitter/X demanding: “When teenager Brianna Ghey was murdered, the killers were named, despite their age, as it was viewed a public interest story. Surely it’s in the public interest to name the sick and twisted savage that murdered three children and severely injured others? Why keep it protected?”.

The reason, of course, is that under section 45 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 under-18s are not named unless and until a judge makes an order in court following conviction to lift their anonymity – as happened with the killers of Brianna Ghey once they were found guilty of murder.

Grimes claims to be a journalist. Why does he not know that? Perhaps it wasn’t taught at Brighton University, where he studied fashion.

Responding to an account on Twitter/X this week that hilariously made the scathingly satirical suggestion that France would blame Brexit for rain during the Olympics opening ceremony, former GB News presenter Dan Wootton – now flogging a £5-a-month internet show – responded: “Lolcano!”.

Wootton likes this word. When Nigel Farage posed with a milkshake after having one hurled at him in Clacton, he wrote: “LOLCANO!”. He also posted “ACTUAL LOLCANO!” when John Swinney became first minister of Scotland, “Lolcano!” at an unfunny tweet mocking Emily Maitlis, “Literal lolcano” at one about Jeremy Vine, “utterly lolcano worthy” at a post about Moira Stewart. And on. And on. And on…

Dan Wootton is 41 years old.

As if being a disgraced former defence secretary and entirely ineffectual international trade minister wasn’t enough, Liam Fox now apparently wants to take credit for an irritatingly popular middle-of-the-road pop song played on commercial radio every two hours for the past 27 years.

Appearing on cabbies’ favourite LBC this week, the former Tory MP was asked about speculation about a previous relationship with Natalie Imbruglia, the Neighbours actress who troubled the hit parade in 1997 with Torn.

“Yes, we were very good friends and yes, I did help her pick Torn out as a single, and yes I was on the credits of the album,” boasted Fox.What next? Did David Davis produce All Saints’ Never Ever? Was Andrew Lansley on backing vocals for Eternal’s I Wanna Be The Only One? Did Owen Paterson write Shola Ama’s You Might Need Somebody? We should be told.

Finally, last week we reported how Lois Perry, the Ukip leader who stepped down during the general election campaign after 34 days in charge, was teasing a TalkTV interview in which she’d tell the truth behind her mayfly-like tenure.

The interview has now gone out on the online TV channel and featured Perry claiming something “sinister” had gone on, with unnamed people “at the very top of the party” wanting an explicit link-up with football lout Tommy Robinson. 

She also claimed she was treated as “the plaything for a group of very wealthy Brexit millionaires who wanted to get a message across”, the sort of claim a presenter may have interrogated her further on, were that presenter an actual journalist and not right wing foghorn Andre Walker.

Still, Perry is still not lacking confidence in her own abilities. Had she not been forced to quit, she says – “not blowing my own trumpet” – that she could have been the “female Farage… charismatic or whatever”. What a loss to British politics!