After the recent revelations that Priti Patel has broken the ministerial code, MPs around Westminster have taken up the PM’s mantle to “form a square around the Prittster” with admirable panache, with many taking to social media to voice their support for the Home Secretary.
Ministers including Andrea Leadsom and Iain Duncan Smith have already vocalised their sympathy for “strong-willed friend and colleague Priti Patel”, but perhaps the most surprising statement of support has come from equalities minister Liz Truss, posted on Twitter earlier today.
“On this day of all days, Gender Pay Gap Day, we should be celebrating the achievements of all the wonderful vagina-owning women out there” she said, in a now deleted Tweet.
“I’ve long said that there is a scarcity of female authority figures around Westminster, and today Priti has proven that women, too, can be bullies. I’d like to commend the way she’s broken the glass ceiling at the heart of despotism, and paved the way for other women to be the oppressors, not the victims”
“As DH Lawrence said, “for every murderer, there must be a murderee”, and as Equalities Minister it is my duty to ensure that women are no longer the murderees, but are, in fact, the murderers. Why don’t more women work in arms manufacturing? Why did no women use the rough sex defence? Why wasn’t there an ITV drama about Rose West? On gender pay gap day we should be interrogating these questions”.
She also commented on the resignation of Sir Alex Allan, the PM’s advisor on ministerial standards and conduct, adding “yes, it’s a shame that Alex felt the need to resign, and Jonathan Jones, and Philip Rutnam, but really, we should be celebrating positive discrimination, as three men have left their jobs to keep one woman in place. If that isn’t progress I don’t know what is”
Other commentators have observed that today’s Twitter pile-on has shades of the social media strategy Johnson implemented in April, when the PM instructed top level Tories to take to Twitter to defend Dominic Cummings’ breach of lockdown regulations. This led directly to the party’s approval ratings on YouGov dropping over 9 points in a week – the sharpest dropoff in over a decade – leading some to wonder whether this could be a high-level play from Boris, whose personal approval rating is already sub-zero, to pave the way for him to retire in January, and just let Rishi Sunak take over.
