Sir Chris Wormald was “once late to a conference call because he was stuck in the maze”
Public figures can often cope with criticism about procedure and technicalities, but are more vulnerable when it comes to utter ridicule, the sort of stuff higher up what we might call the “Iannucci Index”. So the cabinet secretary Sir Chris Wormald might have been relatively relaxed about Tim Shipman’s revelations in The Spectator, such as his tactic of bamboozling politicians with “QI points” (distracting pieces of trivia), and his wish to install Jeremy Pocklington at the Ministry of Justice because it would suit the civil servant’s career rather than the needs of the nation. But surely Wormald will be cringing at Shipman’s follow up on X, namely that he was “once late to a conference call because he was stuck in the maze at Chevening”. These are the things that can take you to the hedge of oblivion.
It’s surprising Sir Keir Starmer has not paid tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, as they had something in common: the rock star’s father was, like the oft-mentioned Starmer Sr, a toolmaker. Starmer would only be copying another Labour MP, Eric Heffer, who once told the House of Commons: “I, like Jesus Christ, am the son of a carpenter.”
