Thursday, April 10, 2008

An Olympic-standard hoofing for Tessa Jowell

It comes from Marina Hyde and can be found on the back page of this morning's Guardian sports section:

"I'm on the record repeatedly being very hard on China on its human rights record," she claimed. "Every time I have been to China I have raised human rights with the relevant ministers."

The minister is also on the record - on film, in fact - looking rather awkward as the tracksuited guards muscled in on Gordon Brown's photo opportunity. So she can hardly claim not to have had a clear view of any incident from her position in the dug-out. Yet despite this, you could not persuade her to utter a word against them in the aftermath.

Her appearance on the next morning's Today programme contrived to make her position even more ludicrously inconsistent. "Would it have been better if the torch had passed smiling crowds and cheering children?" she wondered aloud. "Yes, it would."

But of course it wouldn't. Even for an expert in double-think - Jowell recently joined a campaign to keep open a post office in her constituency, despite having voted in the Commons to shut it - this is a logical breakdown too far.

1 comment:

Letters From A Tory said...

To be fair, Jowell is in an impossible position of not being able to criticise the protestors or the Chinese government. Then again, I don't have any sympathy with her because it's obvious that Labour should criticise the Chinese.