From sociopathic to tetchy: Tory ministers perform full gamut of U-turns | John Crace

Gove was borderline sociopathic, while poor Oliver Dowden was having his first experience of this kind of humiliation

Monday

It's always fascinating to watch how a government minister deals with a major U-turn in policy. Four years ago Michael Gove was happily telling the country how the UK would not only retain all the benefits of the single market, but we'd also end up with a better deal with the EU. Today he came to the Commons to explain how we'd be building lorry parks in Kent and elsewhere and how there would be significant time and financial costs to leaving the EU at the end of the year. You'd have thought that Gove might have at least had the grace to show some signs of contrition; instead he just brazened it out with passive-aggressive politeness as if he was delivering on his original promises. It was borderline sociopathic. We were then treated to Matt Hancock having to explain why when the government had said there would be no need to wear face masks in shops, what it had really meant was that we would need to wear them after all. Hancock's response was rather more human. He just got tetchier and tetchier whenever someone pointed out the obvious, and it rather looked as if most of his anger was directed at his cabinet colleagues, who had made him look a fool yet again. This was far from the first time he had found himself in this position during the coronavirus pandemic and it probably wouldn't be the last. You could tell he was near the end of his tether. Only his ambition is preventing him from resigning. Oliver Dowden meanwhile was having his first experience of this kind of humiliation as he tried to put a positive gloss on the reversal of the Huawei decision. Poor Oliver, who looks more like a luxury goods salesman in a posh department store than a cabinet minister, seemed totally out of his depth as he desperately shuffled his papers trying to find the prepared line to take on any question. It was the longest hour of his ministerial career. For what it's worth, if ever I were to find myself in such a situation, I'm sure I'd do an Oliver. Which is one of the many reasons for me never going into politics.