Fruitful distractions

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Fair play to the Tories – not a phrase which appears often here. When it comes to finding a distraction from the major problems of the day, mostly caused by them in the first place, their creative ability knows few bounds. Thus it was that yesterday, when the newly appointed (and soon to be ex) PM was striding across the world stage doing his best to avoid justifiable criticism for the UK failing to meet its climate targets (to say nothing about its plans to distance itself even further from those targets by exploiting new oil and gas reserves) by staring pointedly at the Russian Foreign Minister (who must, surely, have been absolutely terrified as a result), his team back home came up with an even better distraction technique. They issued a formal denial that the Deputy PM had ever thrown any tomatoes at staff. The other world leaders must have been mightily amused - or, more likely, utterly bemused.

It was a brilliant move, although on closer examination, the denial was somewhat incomplete. There was no denial that tomatoes had been launched on a ballistic trajectory across the room, the denial solely related to the alleged target. During the tomato-related incident – which will surely come to be known as tomato-gate – we are sincerely assured that no persons or animals were in any way physically harmed, although it seems that some of those present might have interpreted it as threatening behaviour, a bit like a shot across the bows of a ship. More importantly, the denial only covered tomatoes, leaving open the possibility that other fruits and vegetables, some with a much greater propensity to wound or injure (imagine the potential damage resulting from hurling a large watermelon, for instance) might have been deployed. For completeness, we should demand a comprehensive list of all the fruits and vegetables which the Deputy PM has never thrown at staff. Tory MPs must also lay urgent questions about which other cabinet ministers may, or may not, be in the habit of throwing fruit around during meetings. Only then will their party realise the full potential of their attempt to use allegations of fruit-throwing as a distraction technique.