Why MPs aren’t cock-a-hoop about Penny Mordaunt’s foul language
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Version 0 of 1. Name: Penny Mordaunt. Age: 41. Appearance: Local TV weather person. Occupation: Tory MP for Portsmouth North, parliamentary under-secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government. That’s a made-up job, surely? Like chief secretary to the office of the Cabinet secretary? Or minister for glass? Of course it’s a real job! It means she is the least important type of government minister, one of four in the glamorous and dynamic DCLG. Her beat includes “coastal communities”. That figures for a Portsmouth MP. Indeed. In fact, she grew up there, and is a naval reservist. She was even named after a warship, HMS Penelope. Arr! So she be well versed in the ways of a sea dog? That’s right. Perhaps a bit too well versed in the pranks and swearing. But there be nothing like an infantile prank to get ye through a rough night on the southern ocean! This one was in the House of Commons. Arr! That be less appropriate. For the sea-prankster, context be everything. Yes. Well, she had got away with it until she confessed everything at an awards bash last week. Confessed what, laddie? As punishment for some dining misdemeanour after a navy training course, she was told to say a rude word repeatedly in the House of Commons, and mention each of the names of the officers present. On 26 March last year, she duly did, in what appeared at the time to be a genuine statement about “hen and cock welfare”. And what were the officers’ names? She didn’t say, but the whole thing is on video, and transcribed in Hansard, so you can try to guess. And this is not the first time Mordaunt has courted a bit of attention, remember. Oh? She went on Splash, that reality diving show, in January, and emerged with quite a bit of credit after giving all the money she earned to charity and performing one of the great belly-flops of the modern era. Arr, yet also oww! “We’re about making life better for people in our patch, and sometimes that involves us doing daft things,” she explained shortly afterwards. Do say: “I bet the whips were eggs-attic hen they heard about this.” Don’t say: “It’s Penny Mordaunt. What did you eggs-pecked?” |