20 June - French goes into hiding
I suppose it would be in bad taste to link
another joke about Chickenpox to the French and how when the pressure is on
they have earned a reputation for disappearing over the horizon? Tempting though.
Back in January Bexley resident Elwyn Bryant wrote to his new MP Louie French to
seek his view on #partygate and whether he thought that Boris Johnson should
resign as Prime Minister. Louie very quickly
replied on
20th January to say he would wait for the Sue Gray report before commenting.
Elwyn was not totally happy with such a response and wrote to tell his MP how he
felt. Once again Louie French replied in what I considered to be an entirely
reasonable way given that a police investigation was by then in progress.
Elwyn asked me to be critical of Louie here but I made no further report to the
correspondence and Elwyn agreed to be patient.
It took a long time for it to see the light of day but eventually the Gray
report became available and at the end of May Elwyn sent the MP a reminder of
the promise made on 20th January.
There was no acknowledgment of any description and once again Elwyn wanted me to
make a fuss about it on BiB. I explained that if every last bit of his correspondence
with Louie French MP ended up on public display here it placed the MP in an
impossible situation and would be likely to guarantee no response to anything in future.
Louie had been given one favourable mention here in January and I considered the
most productive course was to leave it at that. I may have been putting a strain
on my relationship with Elwyn but it is not always a good idea to go in with all guns blazing.
Yet
another letter went in, this time highlighting the fact that David Evennett
had made his position clear on #partygate so why not French.
Once again no reply and my conversation with Elwyn went along the same lines as
before. “You do know that if this is blown open on BiB you will have burned your
bridges and you never will get a reply?”
Elwyn said there was nothing to lose and revealed that on top of the three
letters there had been four phone calls and on very single occasion he had been
given the brush off and not allowed to discuss his MP’s position on #partygate.
Surely it is not all that difficult to say that it is a question on which he
would prefer not to give an answer? It would not be particularly honorable but at least it doesn’t rudely shout “Constituents are of no consequence and can sod off”.
Elwyn can be dangerous when let loose on the telephone and I was not surprised to hear that he had phoned the
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and quoted parts of
the code (PDF) to a lady
he described as being very helpful. Among the many standards to be observed is…
It seems to be saying that Louie French can only remain quiet if he judges that to be in the public interest.
A bit of a stretch to fall back on that excuse but the Commissioner lady said it was all academic anyway as the
MP’s Code did not apply to MPs.
Both of us are still puzzled by that one but in Boris’s Britain anything goes, so maybe the lady is right.
Standards of behaviour? What a quaint idea.
It would appear that Elwyn is not alone in being ignored.
What a way to treat the residents of Bexley. Another useless MP.