Politics Bizarre

[davidgillon]

Latest in the Guardian's Dining Across the Divide series of having opposites dine together is Gina Miller vs Nimco Ali:  https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jul/31/gina-miller-and-nimco-ali-dine-across-the-divide-boris-johnson

Gina Miller's famous for taking the government to court over Brexit and has now founded her own party (the True and Fair party) , Ali is the former Labour supporter and friend of Carrie Johnson who schmoozed her way into No 10 and became godparent to their son Wilfred. Gina Miller makes an awful lot of sense, which is not something that you'd readily apply to Nimco Ali. Oh, there's something to be said for schmoozing the opposition into compromises they might not make if directly confronted, but she's firmly of the opinion that Boris is just a misunderstood nice guy, that even the lying is just because he doesn't want to upset people. Oddly the personal corruption aspect never comes up. OTOH she does note: "I used to date bankers and Tories [and] because they went to [boarding] school at seven, they had no love and no kindness" so she's not completely oblivious.

OTGH she also says "I worked with Priti Patel on this violence against women and girls thing. She really does care." And care and Priti Patel with her reputation for bullying and no policy too harsh are not words I expect to see in the same chapter, never mind sentence.

Miller has a great line in that discussion of Priti Patel's policies with: "Are we not trafficking people to Rwanda?" To which part of Ali's reply is: "Priti has been at the forefront of things that weren’t necessarily her fault, [] She has been a really good home secretary. She really cares about this country."

If your criteria for a 'good' Home Secretary is someone so far to the right they make Genghis Khan and Tamerlane look like bleeding heart liberals.

And at the end Nimco Ali tells Gina Miller she wants to find out more about her party and how she can help.

I will say that there's slightly more logic to Nimco Ali's positions than I expected, but there's something decidedly strange in how she relates to people. Almost as if she's so desperate to be friends with people in a position of influence she'll ignore anything they do/see everything through a rose-tinted filter.

Bizarre. But worth the read.