Take a look at this clip. It’s the thoroughly decent Phil Woolas MP, Home Office minister, having his head kicked in by Joanna Lumley. Albeit a lot of men would pay good money to get Joanna to stare at them like that from so close up. Not that I’m suggesting she’d charge for that kind of thing, obviously. Anyway, I’m losing my thread here. Phil, and the Ministry of Defence, had got on the wrong side of an argument about Gurkha UK settlement rights. Actually, the government’s technical position was a strong one, but it took no.10 to spot that Ms Lumley’s status as national treasure combined with her transparently genuine love for and concern about the Gurkhas (her Dad was a Gurkha officer, ffs) formed one of those massive and fast EWS goods trains and the government was lying on the track. As a no.10 official probably said; “Oh-bejasus-she’s-going-to-kill-us-all-get-out-of-the-way-fast”. So a deal was done and everyone was happy. You can see how happy here.
But what you can also see there is that Ms Lumley is once again heading in our direction. And as The Independent reports, she’s going to hold a press conference tomorrow (Monday). Mais pourquoi?
Well, the MoD has been justifiably concerned about what it suspects are dodgy practices by some agencies who claim to be helping Gurkhas find out about settlement in the UK but may (or may not, I really don’t know) be charging money for a service which is already available free from the MoD. There was an internal inquiry, then a minister gave evidence to the Defence Select Committee about it. “OK so far, sort of”, I can imagine no.10 thinking, “but obviously we’ll be keeping Ms Lumley out of it, won’t we, ‘cos she’d kill us all. Again”.
Unfortunately, Ms Lumley wasn’t only not kept out of it, but was said, in the ministerial select committee evidence, to be essentially dishonest, with her ‘deathly silence’ on the matter being ‘personally irritating’ (it was put in the first person).
I watched the evidence session then waited for the explosion. It’s been a few weeks, so I thought maybe the problem was going to go away. Like a lot do if you leave them alone. But no, it seems more likely that Ms Lumley was getting her case together and planning her next actions very carefully. And that, I’m guessing, is where tomorrow’s press conference comes in.
The situation doesn’t really need analysis now, does it? There’s only one thing to be done. And this is it. The prime minister (who sorted out the whole thing last time and was, by Ms Lumley’s own account, charming in their meeting) needs to issue a statement apologising for the unintentional sleight delivered by the MoD and declaring his undying love for Joanna; all Gurkhas; everyone living in Nepal who might be related to a Gurkha; Gurkhali; Johnny Gurkha restaurant in Aldershot; everyone who might wish to be loved by the pm for any reason at all.
And if he can get Joanna to say, “I’m overwhelmed by the love I’ve been shown here, and I’m urging everyone to vote Labour in May”, then so much the better.
5 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
ericjoycemp's Blog 
The Daily Telegraph carried comments by someone who originally callled herself Patsy Greeneyes, later changed to Patsy Redeyes – Extreme right wing and racist (though not anti Ghurka obviously) mostly abusive of labour, Gordon Brown, Dave dee (another tele poster) and myself.
To quote from my blog:
http://quietzapples.blogspot.com/2009/05/campaign-of-tory-abuse-and-libels-1.html
A topical example I cite involves a poster using the screen name Patsy Redeyes, who originally called herself Patsy Greeneyes and displayed an avatar picture of the actress Ms Lumley. She used homophobic obscene abuse of the PM and those of her fellow posters who took generally pro Labour views on the Daily Telegraph blogs. A similar poster may be found on Guido Fawkes using Joanna Lumley’s name.
I objected to the Telegraph (or Dully Tele, as seems appropriate) and some were removed. I copied some before they went.
Thinking that Ms Lumley’s good name was being abused by some lunatic I phoned her Literary Agent to explain. The lady I spoke to suggested I try her Theatrical Agent, which I did leaving a message.
An hour or so later Patsy Redeyes wrote as follows:
(On Iain Martin’s post In punishing as(piration Labour is committing electoral suicide)
“Aw shucks Baron and there was me thinking you didn’t care,oh dear, I think i’m gonna cry.”
and:
(On Iain Martin’s post In punishing aspiration Labour is committing electoral suicide)
“Ms Lumley,Ms Lumley?
“How very dare you,Patsy Redeyes,IF you don’t mind,these Redeyes were very expensive don’t ya know.”
Almost all my posts on this blog have been removed. Only one of them – in which I suggested that women obsessed with their phobia about male homosexuality, as Ms Lumley evidently is, may have a reason for some sort of jealousy – deserved to be removed, and I asked for it to be removed myself, rather more speedily than the female poster who claims there that she did. As she used the “c” word on another occasion her bona fides as a defender of public decency is somewhat flawed.
( I was commonly known as The Baron, having adopted “baron Laurence de Quietzapple” as id some while before.
Chameleon DID seem to be wary of his association with her over the Ghurka business, no-one should blame him, BUT They are DESPERATE!
Seems like a flippant dismissal of a potential volatile situation. Whether you agree with Lumley or not some shit will hit some fan somewhere and it won’t look good for Labour (not that it’ll affect the GE – things aren’t looking good anyway).
Actually, I think what I’ve said at the end is what’ll happen. Then it’ll all be fine. You’ve not been reading the polls in Scotland, then?
I don’t put much stock in polls really and am totally disillusioned with the UK’s ‘democratic’ process anyway.
Sorry for my bad english. Thank you so much for your good post. Your post helped me in my college assignment, If you can provide me more details please email me.