Newsflash: Ken Clarke doesn't apologise to Theresa May - Telegraph.co.uk (blog)

Ken Clarke: breathtakingly nasty (Photo: PA)

Ken Clarke has issued the briefest and most unapologetic statement it is possible to imagine on his fracas with Theresa May over what has inevitably come to be known as "Cat-gate". He dismisses his extraordinarily arrogant and insulting remarks about his colleague, which effectively branded her a silly and incompetent know-nothing, as "an old story". (Why should the fact of his comments being forty-eight hours old be exculpatory, exactly?) He then announces that, as far as he is concerned, the matter is closed – as if it were up to him to decide that.

To the extent that he makes any apology at all, it is so minimal – a mumble about rather regretting the somewhat colourful language he used – as to imply that anyone who actually regarded his words as objectionable must be insane. What Mr Clarke actually said in that moment which he regards as ancient history, was that Mrs May or one of her amateurish officials must have invented the notorious cat incident because he, Mr Clarke, did not believe that it had happened. Extrapolating from this, he implied that the Home Secretary herself was not fit for the office she held. This is a breathtakingly nasty and unacceptable way for one Cabinet minister to speak of another. If Mr Clarke thinks that his official statement is the end of the matter, he really ought to be put in touch with reality, which is to say, out to grass.