Everything about David Gauke’s vocal delivery screams inaction. It is ‘er’ this and that, with little, repeated run-ups to phrases (more ponderous affectation than stammer).
Mr Gauke is Justice Secretary and Lord High Chancellor. He is the minister who, supposedly, will tell the lawyers when they break the nation’s patience.
If I sound sceptical it may be because he is a lawyer himself. All rise for M’Lord Justice Inertia. For years this Gauke was a George Osborne sidekick. When Osbo was in the mire he would ‘uncork the Gauke’ and let his underling stultify the Commons into submission.
Justice Secretary David Gauke: Otherwise known as ‘Lord Justice Inertia’
Mr Gauke was in turgid form while in the House of Commons on Tuesday
Mr Gauke was ace at prolix procrastination. He did not change anything. He left power in the same hands. The Civil Service liked that. Government colleagues marvelled that anyone could be so loquaciously uninformative. Mrs May values dullness in ministers (she’s no slouch at it herself) and she has promoted Mr Gauke.
Yesterday he took Justice Questions. Ben Bradley (Con, Mansfield), hand in pocket, asked what we will be able to do about the foreign convicts in our prisons once we have left the EU.
For years, Whitehall insisted it could not deport foreign criminals owing to EU rules.
One of the many great things about Brexit is that Sir Humphrey should no longer be able to use that excuse.
Mr Gauke saw off both Zac Goldsmith (left) and Priti Patel (right) with burbling answers
Mind you, don’t bet on it. Take this turgid statement from tortoise Gauke yesterday: ‘The Government are now considering future criminal justice arrangements with the EU with the aim of continuing our close working relationship.’ Noooooo! That answer translated as: ‘I doubt we’ll change a sausage.’
Lawyers and officials loved that ‘close working relationship’ with the EU because: a) it was Left-wing; b) it enabled them to do nothing – and thus show that they were in charge.
I suspect the public would prefer to see foreign criminals banished from our shores, preferably via the bucket of an enormous siege catapult high on the cliffs above Dover.
But who, in Whitehall or the Law, gives a monkey’s cuss about public opinion? The voters are vulgar, unable to appreciate nuance.
Mr Gauke recently admitted to MPs that he shared concerns about the release of John Worboys but still would not launch a judicial review on behalf of the government
Mr Gauke was sworn in as Lord chancellor earlier this month at the Royal Courts of Justice in London
Lawyers are above such demotic impulses. Mr Gauke was later asked about the Parole Board’s decision to release rapist and London taxi driver John Worboys after just eight years. When this story broke ten days ago, it was claimed that Mr Gauke would do all he could to stop the release.
He has since given up on that. Zac Goldsmith (Con, Richmond Park), a firm voice on this matter, said the proposed release of Worboys ‘absolutely horrified and terrified his many, many victims’. Would Mr Gauke ‘do everything in his power to ensure Worboys is released with strict licence conditions that keep him out of Greater London’?
Lord Justice Inertia Gauke: ‘Um, what I would say to my, er, Hon Friend who has been tireless on this, er, matter in, in, in, in recent weeks is that, first of all, that when it comes to the precise conditions those are an operational matter.’
Translation: ‘Don’t blame me, guv, it’s up to the lawyers.’ But he did say he had written them a letter.
Priti Patel (Con, Witham) raised the matter of a constituent who had been left partly blinded by an attacker who was sent to prison for just 22 months, and then released early. Lord Justice Inertia Gauke: ‘I cannot comment on individual sentencing decisions, burble, burble.’
What is the point of being Cabinet minister with responsibility for the courts if you can not let rip, can not howl, can not vent the public’s fury at what the ruddy judges and lawyers are doing to our justice system? Indeed, what is the point of David Gauke?
By the way, during Questions we heard that the taxpayer shells out £1.6billion a year to Legal Aid (ie to lawyers). Ellie Reeves (Lab, Lewisham W & Penge) was scandalised. She wanted the sum to be higher.
Miss Reeves is herself, you guessed it, a lawyer.