POLITICS hardly wants for further division at the moment, but a new fault line opened up yesterday in the Sunday morning talk shows. The subject was what happened in a certain south London flat last week, an incident inevitably, and lamely, dubbed “Sofagate” in the papers seeing as it featured the spilling of red wine on a couch.
To Remainers v Leavers, Yes v No can now be added the Rod Stewart society (motto: I don’t want to talk about it) versus the Chas & Dave faction, who would be happy to rabbit on about the matter till the chlorinated chickens come home to roost.
First up was Sir Ed Davey on Sky News’s Ridge on Sunday. The contender for the Liberal Democrat leadership was firmly in the Chas & Dave camp, saying Mr Johnson was not fit to be Prime Minister. He was followed by Labour’s Andrew Gwynne, Shadow Communities Secretary. Surprisingly, he said Labour would back a second referendum on Brexit. Unsurprisingly, he agreed on Mr Johnson’s unsuitability for office.
READ MORE: Police called after altercation
It seemed like people wanted to give Mr Johnson a “kicking” this morning, said host Sophy Ridge. Since her first question to almost every guest was about the former Foreign Secretary, this could have hardly come as a shock. Then again, how could she not ask? Ridge on Sunday may bill itself as “a new type of politics show”, whatever that means, as Prince Charles would say, but it could not ignore the story splashed over the weekend papers.
Mr Johnson was the subject of the opening monologue on The Andrew Marr Show, with the Scot saying that before the news broke on Friday night about police being called to the Camberwell flat of Johnson’s partner, Carrie Symonds, it had been assumed his journey to the leadership of his party and the UK was going to be a stroll in the park. “Whether it is something or nothing,” concluded Marr, “he is not going to walk through this campaign”.
Marr’s final guest, after David Miliband on Iran/US tensions and Labour MP Caroline Flint on a letter to Jeremy Corbyn demanding he rule out a second referendum, was Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary.
READ MORE: Preserving Union comes first says Hunt
A backer of Jeremy Hunt, surely he would take this chance to use the incident to attack Mr Johnson? Mr Fox is far too wily to do anything so obvious. While saying that private lives did not concern him, he also thought Mr Johnson should explain, as he had refused to do at hustings on Saturday, why police were called to the flat. “I think it is always easier to just give an explanation,” said the voice of sweet reasonableness. Mr Hunt wanted to have it both ways too, telling Sky News:"I think someone who wants to be PM should answer questions on everything, but I'm not going to comment on character." Oh no, heaven forbid.
Sunday Politics Scotland with Gordon Brewer had Scots Tory MP and Johnson backer Ross Thomson, live from Aberdeen. Speaking with a skew-whiff photograph of the harbour behind him, Mr Thomson declared his membership of the Rod Stewart appreciation society. This was a personal matter for Boris, guv, not going to comment, let’s move on.
Would you like a job in a Boris Johnson government, asked Brewer. “I’m enjoying being on the back benches and I want to make Boris Johnson Prime Minister. That’s my job right now.” That will be a big fat aye then.
Struan Stevenson, former Conservative MEP, turned out to be a Rabbiter, saying the incident at the London flat had been “like something out of EastEnders”. Mr Stevenson was being interviewed in his garden as several little birds waged war noisily behind him. If you were looking for a metaphor for the current state of Conservative party politics it had just arrived, with bells and cheeps on.
Ridge on Sunday had a sit down with Nicola Sturgeon, which turned out to be both a good and a bad thing for the programme. The interview had been carried out in Edinburgh last Thursday, prior to the Johnson story breaking on Friday, so the First Minister could not be asked for her views on that. She did, however, say that his becoming leader would be disastrous for the Tories UK-wide but particularly in Scotland.
Ridge asked if she felt sorry for Theresa May. “Erm … I … as someone in a leadership position I know how tough it is and I know how lonely it is so, yes on a human level I can have sympathy with the position she has been in. But it is also the case, and I don’t mean this in a nasty way, but she has in many respects brought the difficulties she encountered upon herself.”
The closing stages of any interview are always a tricky moment. If a sneaky question is coming, it will arrive then. Ridge had one for the FM, to wit: with Scotland now out of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, who would she now be supporting?
Ah, the old “Anyone But England” question, the pit that Andy Murray once fell into at Wimbledon when England were in some tournament or other.
“Oh for goodness sake,” laughed Ms Sturgeon, “give me at least 24 hours. This is the day after the night before … I don’t know. Let’s see. I wish England well obviously I do, but asking a Scottish person the morning after we’ve been put out of a World Cup … just be a bit gentler on me than that please.”
Gentleness in politics? As if that will ever catch on.
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