It’s BOGOF on ex-DWP wet wipes making clowns of themselves: Thérèse Coffey AND Mel Stride

Whilst we’ve been attempting to fend off both a literal country on fire and a figurative one under the new Labour Party government, we haven’t had time for one of the small pleasures: post-election laughing at desperate Tories. But it’s buy one, get one free today – as Thérèse Coffey and Mel Stride are both looking more wet wipe-like than usual.

Thérèse Coffey: just WHO do you think you are???

First, the news that Thérèse Coffey has gone crawling to Labour for a job.

According to the Telegraph, Coffey – who was of course defeated in the recent election – applied to be the UK director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The job pays £183,400 a year, roughly double that of an MP, and as it’s a finance role it’s under Treasury boss Rachel Reeves – usually held by a civil servant.

The EBRD was set up in the wake of the Cold War to help support growing eastern European economies. It’s owned and funded by 73 countries, including the UK, with a board made up of senior government officials from each one (usually their equivalent of chancellors).

Whilst Reeves holds the UK’s governor role, the board is also made up of directors with two from each country who play a more active role in the bank’s running.

Typical of a Tory to fuck up the economy and then attempt to run into a cushy bank job.

Coffey also didn’t hang about attempting to get a position in the new government. The role was advertised on LinkedIn in July, meaning she probably went straight from being booted out to plotting how to get back in.

In a true show of overconfidence, Coffey told the Telegraph:

It was an interesting role. I thought I would apply given my experience in government on international work. I have dealt with these sorts of banks before.

I’m not sure I’d be bragging about my ‘experience in government’ if I were Thérèse Coffey, but then I don’t have the self-belief of a Tory who has never been told no in their life.

How many lettuce puns are there?

In case you need a refresher – because Thérèse apparently does – she was deputy PM for about 20 minutes back in that heady summer of Liz Truss pretending to be PM in 2022.

Strap in for some truly great lettuce puns. You have been warned.

Of course, her being outlasted by a literal vegetable was just the tip of the iceberg. ‘Lettuce’ not forget that during that brief time, Truss tanked the economy with her disastrous mini-budget, the mini ‘gem’ of budgets if you will (shut up). It caused interest rates to soar, stemming the worst cost of living crisis in 40 years. Almost as many weeks as she lasted.

However, way before Lettuce Liz was a twinkle in a Reach PLC digital editor’s eye, Coffey was already out there ruining lives.

Between 2019 and 2022 she acted as the DWP secretary during which time she just flat refused to release reports on the true scale of disabled deaths due to having benefits denied or removed.

I mean you would too if you were the cause of thousands of untold deaths.

DWP deaths: not our problem, says Coffey – and it wasn’t Stride’s either

At the time Coffey said:

We do not have a statutory duty of safeguarding, though of course we do care about our claimants.

She wriggled out of having to reveal it due to a loophole, because the reports were commissioned under a previous DWP minister. That hardly seems fair when we had countless heads of the DWP in recent years.

She was of course unsuccessful in her job hunt, which is just as well really considering Rishi made her a dame for all her years of grovelling to the revolving door of Tory PMs.

Elsewhere in former DWP wet wipe news, Mel Stride is once again opening his big mouth and just running with whatever comes out of it.

Speaking of someone with far too much Tory-fueled overconfidence, we have a man who is running for leader whilst not aware that most voters have no idea who he is. In an IPSOS poll on who would be a good Tory leader, he’s not even named.

Whilst trying in any way to be relevant, he’s now ranting about the riots and blaming anyone but his party. Last week he went from blaming Farage to saying Farage was putting the police at risk to calling Musk’s comments about civil war “deeply unhelpful”.

This week however he’s seemingly agreeing with those arseholes because it means he gets to blame immigrants. He said that white working-class boys have it hardest in society and that it’s a levelling-up issue that they can’t find jobs, whilst casually throwing in that migration should be capped.

Nah mate, it’s a deprivation issue that the government caused and we both know it.

They should be in jail

As I said last week, those in power want to keep us down so that they can continue to galivant around and not suffer any consequences.

This week marks a year since the EHRC ruled the DWP and the British government had failed to implement any of the recommendations in the UNCRDP 2016 report.

Whilst disabled people continue to suffer, those who made our lives worse get to carry on flitting about playing politics – when they should all be in jail.

Feature image via the Canary