back to article Former wig-wearing Twitterphobe replaces Hancock as UK.gov's Secretary of Fun

Today's reshuffle of UK politicos sees Jeremy Wright – a man whose parody account has seen more activity in 12 hours than his real one has in the past three years – appointed Secretary of Fun. Wright, a lawyer by training, takes the reins at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from Matt Hancock, who has been …

  1. macjules

    The new NHS app will be in safe hands!

    Which one would that be? Cypher (formerly Silent Secret) - the anonymous peer-to-peer social network?

  2. Rich 11

    Some good news, at least

    I would like to congratulate the new Foreign Secretary on his promotion, ensuring that at this critical time in the grand history of British diplomatic triumphs there will be a far more frequent set of opportunities for exasperated interviewers to address him by his correct surname.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Some good news, at least

      I'm really hoping they will send our new Foreign Secretary on a tour of Latin America:

      a) it's a long way away from the NHS, but mostly;

      b) the Spanish pronunciation of 'Hunt'.

      1. Pen-y-gors

        Re: Some good news, at least

        @Mike Richards

        b) the Spanish pronunciation of 'Hunt'.

        Unt?

        1. CarlWoods

          Re: Some good news, at least

          O yes!

      2. macjules
        Paris Hilton

        Re: Some good news, at least

        Well, we are getting there it seems. We have a Hammond and a May in the pack, and now we have a Jeremy. The fact that his surname is Hunt is, for the BBC at least, just one letter away from Clarkson.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Some good news, at least

      I respectfully disagree. IMHO, it should be reserved to the aforementioned MP's Constituents of which I am one to call him by earned surname rather than his given name.

      That alone should be enough to get him deselcted before the next election.

  3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "Hancock's departure from DCMS will be a loss of consistency for a department that has now had four secretaries of state in two years."

    That seems pretty consistent to me. Staff are probably already setting up the sweepstake for who's next and when.

  4. tony2heads

    Brexiteers jump ship

    I believe the usual idiom is 'like rats off a sinking ship'.

    To switch idiom; Capt May has hit the iceberg but continues to order full steam ahead

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Brexiteers jump ship

      "Capt May has hit the iceberg but continues to order full steam ahead"

      As reality sinks in I think it's slow astern to the only reasonable Brexit; one where we keep just about everything intact in trading terms to minimise damage but, not actually being in the EU, have no say over the rules. It's called taking back control.

      I think it was Matthew Parris who said reality will do the heavy lifting.

      BoJo was right for once. The compromise was turd polishing but I don't think he'd quite cottoned on to the fact that the turd is Brexit itself.

    2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Brexiteers jump ship

      You're making the same incorrect assumption as your friend Juncker, that the hardline Brexiteers are abandoning Brexit, and leaving it to the new "Brexit Means Remain"™[1] policy.

      They aren't, they're abandoning the good ship Theresa, and readying the torpedoes. If they don't sink her, a commons vote will. They really should have dumped the stupid woman after the election, it will hurt a lot more now but she will go. My money is on a new PM before Parliament returns after the summer recess.

      [1]TM = Theresa May

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Brexiteers jump ship

        "My money is on a new PM before Parliament returns after the summer recess."

        You could be right and my money would be on it being Hammond.

        1. Aladdin Sane
          Trollface

          Re: Brexiteers jump ship

          Not Clarkson?

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Brexiteers jump ship

            "Not Clarkson?"

            With two Jeremies in the hunt already, so to speak, we don't need another and one May is surely enough. Many would argue more than enough.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Brexiteers jump ship - Not Clarkson?

            Though I find Clarkson's schtick annoying I have to say that even if someone assassinated Johnson and Clarkson was parachuted into Uxbridge - which would be an improvement in itself - he would never be PM. He's pro-Remain.

        2. Roj Blake Silver badge

          Re: Brexiteers jump ship

          It will be virtually impossible to get rid of May during a Parliamentary recess because:

          a) Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act you need to have a vote before you can call a general election ahead of schedule

          b) Leadership challenges in the Tory party are organised by the 1922 committee which doesn't meet unless Parliament is sitting. They also use Commons infrastructure for the initial rounds of voting.

      2. John G Imrie

        Re: Brexiteers jump ship

        I reckon that Mrs. May has another 8 months, 18 days, 8 hours, 50 minutes and 24 seconds, at time of posting, left.

      3. Teiwaz

        Re: Brexiteers jump ship

        they're abandoning the good ship Theresa, and readying the torpedoes.

        Yes indeed, and twenty years down the line the bounty hunters will be despatched to hunt them down and bring them back for fraud, misleading the public, and generally prancing about the political stage overacting badly.

        Recent carrying on is the worst sort of political pantomime and tantrum toy flinging I've ever seen, and I grew up in N.I.

        1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

          Re: Brexiteers jump ship

          misleading the public, and generally prancing about the political stage overacting badly.

          Make that a crime & Westminster would be empty, on both sides of the house.

          Hmmm....

        2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

          Re: Brexiteers jump ship

          Yes indeed, and twenty years down the line

          Be careful with the patriotic suggestions. They are unpopular at present.

    3. Kernel

      Re: Brexiteers jump ship

      "To switch idiom; Capt May has hit the iceberg but continues to order full steam ahead"

      Which is the correct form of action IMHO - i) much less water gets through the hole if there's a bloody great lump of ice securely wedged in it and, ii) with all that ice available it's got to be gin and tonics all 'round, hasn't it?

  5. BebopWeBop
    Angel

    His Twitter account has lain pretty much dormant since he joined in April 2015 ahead of the general election

    Is there hope then?

  6. Trigonoceps occipitalis

    "is not quite as tech-savvy as his predecessor."

    Look, we comentards know about Facebook, Google, Ashley Madison, TalkTalk et al. Perhaps he is ahead of the curve not having a social media footprint?

  7. Pen-y-gors

    Lawyer?

    Wright had a career as a criminal lawyer

    I thought all lawyers were, by definition, criminals?

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Lawyer?

      "I thought all lawyers were, by definition, criminals?"

      IME most of the criminal lawyers I met were quite civil. Civil lawyers Ambulance chasers, however, could be reckoned to be criminal.

    2. Chris G

      Re: Lawyer?

      I just knew when reading the article I would be beaten to it.

      Though I must confess the lawyer I use here in Spain is one of the best I have come across and not in the least bit criminal, she has become a personal friend.

      There had to be at leat one honest lawyer in Europe.

      On the possible replacement for the Tin Lady, I just hope the Bojo doesn't have a chance; If the others are abandoning a sinking ship, he would be the one to ensure it went down quicker and with little chance of salvage.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        IT Angle

        Re: Lawyer?

        There had to be at leat one honest lawyer in Europe.

        It's plausible. All you have to do is abandon all ambition, and spend a career doing conveyancing.

  8. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    Pirate

    Rats ahoy, me hearties!

    "Brexiteers jump ship faster than proverbial shit off a brick"

    There don't seem to be that many jumping nor particularly quickly.

    Things may change over the coming days but I doubt it. Only a small minority actually want a hard brexit. The notion that everyone who voted to leave wants a hard brexit and 17.4 million will storm Parliament or Downing Street if they don't get it is a brexiteer invention, only believed by Kippers and Daily Express commentards.

    Most leavers wanted a return to a trading partnership without EU politics and federal ambitions. Most remainers accept that as the second-best option. We were therefore always going to end up in some kind of vassal state; people knew that, it was just a question of extent.

    People might not like May's specific plan but, even if they think it's keeping us too far in, most will still view it as preferable to a hard brexit. The brexiteers are sunk. And they probably know it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Rats ahoy, me hearties!

      Most leavers wanted a return to a trading partnership without EU politics and federal ambitions. Most remainers accept that as the second-best option. We were therefore always going to end up in some kind of vassal state; people knew that, it was just a question of extent.

      Only because of the staggering and fuck-witted incompetence that infests the palace of Westminster. The EU have a €100bn annual trade surplus with the UK, the negotiating cards should be stacked in our favour. But having a daft, cloth eared old bat as prime minister was never going to work out well.

      Everything that really matters has been left to fester, and yet the cretinous retards of government have had time to develop and launch a snappy, 75 point Action Plan to Improve the Lives of LGBT People. That'll help.

      I'd like to say the sooner Bagpuss May is removed to the asylum the better - but who's to replace her? Smeagol Gove? Bozo the Clown? Cobynovski? Diane Abbott? Pudgy faced Salmond? There's not a single competent statesman, strategist, tactician or even populist anywhere in Parliament.

    2. Nick Kew

      Re: Rats ahoy, me hearties!

      Elements of the BBC seem to be firmly on that hard-brexit bandwagon now.

      When the news of Davis resigning came, I naturally thought "He's getting out before the blame gets big". Kind-of like Blair did.

      But then he was interviewed on the Today programme, and he convinced me it wasn't just that. He was actually pretty supportive of his leader, just saying he was no longer the man to deliver. On the other hand, the interviewer was trying hard to goad him into a proper Toffoon[1]-style attack on May. Indeed, come to think of it, the Beeb seem to have been trying hard to goad every recent (brexiteer) Tory interviewee into talking about a new leadership challenge: "won't the 52% feel betrayed?"

      I predicted two years ago the extremists would hijack the brexit agenda ("The tail that wags a very big dog"). I couldn't have put so many faces to those extremists back then, and it's interesting to reflect how, for example, Boris and Farage seem somewhat to have swapped roles since then.

      [1] Boris or Rees-Mogg. The ones who should have stayed firmly within the pages of P G Wodehouse.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Rats ahoy, me hearties!

      Jason Bloomberg "Only a small minority actually want a hard brexit"

      WRONG! A soft Brexit is nothing more than keeping all the EU interference but having absolutely no say in the sh** they throw at us, which is even worse than the situation as it stands now.

      If you cannot see why this is a really, really bad idea then you probably don't have a problem with letting a bunch of unelected civil servants run your life - as long as they not British civil Servants, obviously.

      (And anyone who voted for Brexit who then said "but I was only voting tactically, I don't really want to leave" is obviously too stupid to understand the concept of "one person, one vote" in a Referendum. Article 50 has been triggered - to go back on it now is to declare 'Democracy' as practiced in the UK is dead and has been replaced by the ones who can whine and moan the longest getting to decide. Which, by all appearances, seems to sum up many of the anti-Brexit groups quite well...)

      1. Santa from Exeter

        Re: Rats ahoy, me hearties! @ AC

        Quote "anyone who voted for Brexit who then said "but I was only voting tactically, I don't really want to leave"

        These are precisely the buffoons who managed to get us into this shit show in the first place

        Quote "to go back on it now is to declare 'Democracy' as practiced in the UK is dead"

        Too late, that has already been proved by the fact that the lying gits and their moneyed cronies managed to sway enough of the terminally hard of thinking into voting the same way as the Xenophobes and Daily Fail Readers.

        Incidentally, I think that you have a poor grasp of what Democracy actually is. It isn't 'We will make a decision and never change it.' Nor are referenda legally binding.

        If you take the tack that those who don't vote are happy with the status quo (spoilt papers count as abstentions) you will find that a large majority actually *didn't* want to leave.

        The paper for the referendum, along with any hard information leading up to the event, was woefully lacking in any detail whatsoever, further confusing many I have talked to who are certainly not pro 'Hard Brexit'

        When you consider that Farage stated before the referendum that (to paraphrase) If the vote is close, say 52% to 48% we will have to have another referendum, he shut up about that pretty quickly afterwards!

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