On Friday (HERE) I posted about Attorney General Geoffrey Cox and how he seemed to be trashing his own career. I am afraid it's far worse. He is now the butt of a humorous sketch in The Telegraph. If it was in The Guardian he might have survived. The Grauniad is not natural reading material for those on the right and an attack from them would be like a badge of honour for Cox anyway. No, he is now having fun poked at him from 111 Buckingham Palace Road. How fickle people are. Last year he was the darling of the Tory conference, today a buffoon.
Peter Foster, James Crisp and Steven Swinford collaborate to eviscerate the AG in Saturday's edition. This morning Cox must be surveying the smoking wreckage of his own glittering career and all because the PM sent him to meet Michel Barnier.
You have to admit Cox asked for it after he described Foster's earlier report as 'misunderstood fag-ends dressed up as facts'. As someone once said it's not a good idea to criticise a man who buys his ink by the gallon - and so it proved.
The article is titled: Theatrics and bluster backfire as Cox leaves Brussels bewildered. I can't give you the whole article because it doesn't seem to be available on line and anyway I've used up my free articles this week. I can give you a few extracts. The whole thing concerns Cox's ill-fated visit to Brussels last week where it is claimed:
"The two sides were at loggerheads. EU sources say that Mr Cox's general bluster did nothing to endear him to either Michel Barnier, the aloof former French government minister or Sabine Weyand, the German technocrat and EU trade export with a legendary grasp of detail"
I always find if you're going to employ bluster it's best to keep it for simpletons who don't do detail. Barnier and Weyand are at the opposite end of the intelligence spectrum.
"And it was on the detail that the talks were foundering. EU and UK sources say that Mr Cox tried a number of different tacks to try to shift the basis of the negotiation, all which left the EU side wondering if the Attorney General had been paying attention these last two years".
Remember this is a Secretary of State and the nation's most senior law officer!
"Mr Cox reportedly began expounding on the broad test of 'reasonableness' and the view of the 'man on the Clapham omnibus' - concepts which baffled EU negotiators".
"The gulf was indeed huge, and it got worse over a dinner of tuna steaks on the fifth floor of the European Commission's Berlaymont headquarters when Mr Cox started to argue that the entire backstop concept might be illegal under the European Court of Human Rights.
"He referenced the recent legal challenge by Lord Trimble which left the European side shocked - along with British officials - since the Attorney General was now apparently arguing against the advice of the British government's own lawyers and the position of the Prime Minister.
" 'It backfired all spectacularly,' said another source. 'There was a feeling he was moving the goalposts,' added another official. 'The backstop was negotiated with British lawyers and now Cox was saying it might fall foul of a Human Rights institution which not so long ago Theresa May wanted to leave? It was crazy' "
Making a fool of yourself in private among friends is one thing, but doing it as part of the most important negotiations this country has faced in its entire history is quite another. And then having it plastered over The Telegraph of all places. He appears a bit of an idiot, a parochial small town solicitor who has never ventured beyond Ramsgate and is way out of his depth.
As I mentioned at the top, his career might not have suffered a mortal blow had these reports only appeared in The Guardian where Marina Hyde and John Crace mock him mercilessly:
Hyde:
"Anyway, Geoffrey Cox has been in Brussels this week, where his preposterous gambit was apparently to suggest that the backstop – which his own government negotiated about 10 minutes ago – could breach the European convention on human rights for the people of Northern Ireland. What can you even say? A senior EU source remarked tartly: “He said a lot of surprising things this week.” The rest of us might simply note that we are 21 days out from the date of scheduled EU departure, with or without a deal, and our apparent best idea is to just claim any old random bollocks. The backstop could breach the ECHR! No? OK, then: it contravenes the London Submarine Protocol of 1936. You don’t like that one? Fine, it’s against the laws of gin rummy. The second law of thermodynamics? How about Murphy’s law? LA Law? Denis Law?"
Crace:
"This pro bono work for the government might be good for the soul, but it was a lot more trouble than it was worth. Note to self. Don’t answer the phone the next time the prime minister rings".
Isn't it awful when you realise the inadequacies you have tried desperately to conceal for years are suddenly front page news across the whole nation?
He surely cannot survive.
