Nigel Adams was yesterday the first minister to resign following May's statement the day before proposing urgent, deadlock-breaking talks with Jeremy Corbyn. What he expected the prime minister to do given his own colleague's steadfast refusal to vote for her deal, I really do not know. His resignation letter talks about 'legitimising' Corbyn as though the leader of the next largest party in parliament is somehow to be sidelined and ignored. Adams himself has voted consistently FOR Mrs May's deal so I assume he wants to see it ratified, he just doesn't want Labour votes to help it over the line, as if it might somehow be sullied.
It hardly looks like a principled thing. He has shown himself to be totally partisan and completely unable to think about national unity or how the country is ever going to come together again.
Fresh from tweeting his resignation to the twittersphere at 9:36 am, our intrepid MP rushed to the back benches at PMQs and with the eyes of the world fixed firmly on the UK parliament, wrestling as it was with the epic omnishambles of Brexit, he asked the PM about - the steps at Selby railway station (HERE Col 1028). For a brief moment our small market town was the centre of the universe:
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
Can I urge my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, on behalf of all the people of Selby, to put her weight behind the campaign for step-free access for Selby railway station? [Interruption.] I am sorry to disappoint colleagues with my line of questioning, but this matter is very important for the people of Selby. In this day and age, it is totally unacceptable that those who are unable to walk up stairs—people with disabilities—are denied access to public transport. The people of Selby demand action.
I'm not sure if he expected her to rush from the chamber and demand an emergency debate at the UN in order to raise the Great Selby Step question so that perhaps Trump, Putin and president Xi Jinping could put their differences aside and head for North Yorkshire shouldering picks and shovels to get the job done with all speed. Matters of world peace need to be temporarily halted while the really important stuff gets done. In Selby we must abolish steps.
It's obvious his time at the Wales Office has affected his judgement, not to mention his mind. He is now unable to differentiate between genuine trivia and the merely banal or totally pointless stuff. Take this example of his former official duties in a recent written reply he gave to a question from the shadow minister for Wales, Chris Ruane on March 14th (HERE):
To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, what plans his Department has for participation in Earth Hour on 30 March 2019.
Nigel Adams Assistant Whip, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales
The Office of the Secretary of State for Wales supports the aims of Earth Hour and will be fully participating on 30 March. The Office will be turning off any non-essential electric lights at our London and Cardiff offices from 20:30 to 21:30 on that day.
Answering questions like these is the kind of thing that gives tedium a bad name, so paralysingly dull in fact that raising a question about stepless access at Selby station must seem like flying naked through the Grand Canyon with a jetpacks strapped to both legs.
The pompous idiot describes himself as government minister for Wales in his tweet which is a rather grand title for a gofer in the Wales Office. It is in fact just about the lowest of the low, a junior minister in the smallest department.
Following yesterday’s cabinet, this morning I’ve been to Downing Street & resigned my position as UK Govt Minister for Wales & Govt Whip. I’m grateful to the PM for the opportunity to serve as a Minister since 2017 & will continue to serve my constituents from the backbenches. pic.twitter.com/W15xS4cOBP— Nigel Adams MP (@nadams) April 3, 2019
The Wales Office is responsible for the few functions which weren't devolved to the National Assembly of Wales in 2006. Its annual budget is about £5 million which is probably what the DWP spends on pencils in a week. Alun Cairns is the Secretary of State and nobody has ever heard of him. Adams is a junior minister under Cairns which makes him a nobody who reports to a non-entity. It looks like a way of channelling a bit more money into the pocket of some ambitious but totally useless MPs who are also employed in the whips office, as Adams is - or was.
So what did he mean by resigning (as Metternich is alleged to have said about Talleyrand on hearing of the latter's death)?
I assume as BoJo's rather short-lived campaign manager in 2016, a job that seems particularly good training for a pointless position at the Wales Office, he has an eye to a future role as Johnson's running mate when Theresa May fires the starting pistol on the next leadership race. Perhaps in the great task he has set himself of destroying a once respected nation, Brexit was not sufficient for the ambitious lad from Selby High school, he wants to continue his work and raze the economy to the ground as Chief Secretary to the Treasury or even Chancellor of the Exchequer? Who knows?
The Oyster is his world.
