“Incredible” is a favourite word of David Cameron’s and his advisors were always trying to discourage him from over-using it in speeches. Now, however: incredible – what an understatement.
In Dublin in the early ‘80s, a fugitive murderer was found in a house belonging to the Attorney-General. Trying to distance the government from the affair, a spokesman described it as “grotesque, unprecedented, bizarre and unbelievable.” Conor Cruise O’Brien spotted that this could be shortened to Gubu. For a time, that entered the Irish political lexicon. It should now – damn the Protocol – be imported here. Boris was the Gubu prime minister.
