Cat Gate...Cat Flap would be better... runs and runs... like The Mousetrap (ouch)

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. You really ... (and I'm not making this up)... couldn't make this up, if you get my drift

Theresa May made a fool of herself when, at the Tory's annual get together, she told a story of a South American* student who was saved by a judge from repatriation by virtue of the fact that he had a cat. It was very quickly revealed that in fact the reason that the man was not repatriated was that he was in a stable relationship of over four years with an English woman. The judge had simply added that the couple had a cat. And Ken Clarke quite reasonably in my opinion chastised her over her accusations. He is after all Justice Secretary in England and she had cited (and she wasn't making it up) something that was simply not true, relating to his department. She wouldn't have liked it if he'd made up something about the Home Office (although most of what you could make up about the Home Office is probably, in reality, much less damaging than the truth). 


So much has been made of the tale (not the tail) of the cat, Clarke's reaction, Cameron's anger at Ken for dissing Tess of the Horribles in public and all that.


But worse was still to come.


Today the Guardian has revealed that, not only did the awful Tess make it up...yes, you did Tess... she also plagiarised it. Yes, the famous cat featured in the speech of another politician, also, it would seem a liar.


Still worse to come. It was UKIP's Nigel Farage from whom it was plagiarised!! Laugh? I nearly....,  oh never mind!

Yes, back in July, Nigel, talking to Eastleigh's Railway Society, told the exact same story, using the same words and even using the same pause at "...and I'm not making this up..." (He was.)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfKHr4pW2SY&feature=player_embedded


Anyway, busy people like May will not have done all the work on her speech herself. It takes ages to write a good speech, as most of us know.  And May is off Home Secretarying for a good part of the week, so she will have relied heavily upon speech writers. Clearly one of them has been attending Nigel Farage's functions. I expect by now the offending writer will have a good deal more time to follow Farage around England picking up more little gems of made up wisdom.


In the meantime, to keep his right wing Tessy lovers on board, it looks like Ken, the Lord Chancellor, and the most experienced member of the government, will be sacrificed. Oh well, it just makes it easier to dislike them.


* The student was Bolivian, although Farage mistakenly says Peruvian. Peru, Bolivia, Nepal, Botswana....it's all just 'Foreign' to him if it ain't England.