Back in 1997, John
Prescott held up a crab
in a jar of water and told the world that the crab was called Peter. The name
was not chosen at random. Peter (the other one, not the crab; details of the
subsequent career of the crab, who was actually a female called Dennis even if she
didn’t know it herself, are lost to history) has led a somewhat chequered
career, having been forced to resign
from government posts twice over
different scandals: in 1998 and again three years later. The common thread in
both resignations was his over-familiarity with the very rich. It’s a theme
which has run through his life.
His latest ‘resignation’
is down to much the same thing: a familiarity with, and willingness to overlook
the failings of, a very rich man. In this case, it was Jeffrey Epstein, the source
of whose wealth itself remains a mystery to many, although neither
of the two Peters are known to care very much about the provenance of that
wealth. In the crab’s case, that is entirely forgivable. Those who resisted his
enforced departure from his latest role think that he was an effective bridge
to Trump. Perhaps being tarred with the same Epsteinian brush is indeed
actually an advantage. Being joint contributors to the Epstein birthday book
gives them something in common, even though only one of them has admitted it to
date. Trump continues to deny that the words, artwork and signature are his.
Trump’s supporters
concentrate on the signature, claiming – despite all appearances – that it’s
nothing like Trump’s own signature. Somehow, it seems that the Democrats (I
mean, of course, ‘radical left lunatics’) had forged his signature 30 years ago
(when he was a Democrat himself, before, obviously, they became ‘radical left
lunatics’), as a hoax and planted it in a book ready to reveal it when he
became a Republican president for the second time. There is probably a universe
in which that is credible – it just isn’t this one. I wonder, though, if
they’re concentrating on the wrong thing. What if the signature is genuine, but
the words above it aren’t? I mean, setting out an imaginary conversation
requires the deployment of imagination doesn’t it? And is ‘enigma’ really part
of his vocabulary? I suspect that he really didn’t write the words himself.
Maybe someone else did it at his behest and presented it to him to sign, or maybe
he was tricked into signing it. He might stand a better chance of being
believed if he admitted that the signature was genuine, but claimed he was
fooled into signing it. In his case, being a fool would be a highly credible
defence.
The crab’s namesake
has no such defence. He really did write the words attributed to him. He was
long overdue another ‘resignation’.
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