Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 10, 2011 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column
Did you hear about the cat that swallowed a ball of wool? She had mittens. What about the cat who drank five bowls of water? She set a new lap record. If you think these are bizarre, consider the case of the MP’s wife and the kitten in Britain recently.
British newspapers are known for their funny headlines, some of which are inadvertent like “Iraq Head Seeks Arms”, “Is There A Ring Of Debris Around Uranus”, “Safety Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should Be Belted”, “New Vaccine May Contain Rabies”, “Sex Education Delayed – Teachers Request Training”, “Man Minus Ear Waives Hearing”, “Police Find Crack In UK”, “Queen Mary Having Bottom Scraped”, and the classic “Steals Clock, Faces Time.”
For those into music, “Zip Me Up Before You Go Go” was the headline in the Sun and in the first edition of The Daily Star when George Michael was arrested in a public toilet for lewd behaviour. The Star replaced its headline in the second edition with the almost as good “Wham Bam Flash In The Pan.” When actor Hugh Grant split with Jemima Khan earlier this year, the headline writers had fun with “Chuck A Khan.”
The attempted robbery of the jewels in the London Dome was headlined, “I’m Only Here For De Beers.”
The headline used in the Daily Mail for the story of the MP’s wife and the kitten was “KITNAPPED: MP’s wife found guilty of stealing her love-rival’s cat after court sees this damning CCTV footage.” The article states, “In scenes bordering on farce, MP’s wife Christine Hemming sneaks around her love rival’s garden in the shadows on her way to steal her kitten.
“As she passes a side window where a light shines from inside, the 53-year-old, married to millionaire Liberal Democrat John Hemming, even gets down on her hands and knees and crawls in case she is spotted.
“The jaw-dropping CCTV footage was released today as Mrs Hemming was found guilty of burgling Emily Cox’s home in Moseley, Birmingham, and stealing a tabby named Beauty after a highly unusual case estimated to have cost the taxpayer £50,000 which laid bare in court details of the two women’s ‘love triangle’ with the MP.”
The article continued, “During the 16 minutes of her antics captured on film, Mrs Hemming is also seen peering through the glass in the unlocked back door for several minutes before opening it and walking in. She can then be seen apparently rummaging around in a room. After three minutes inside, the ‘cat burglar’, wearing a skirt, jumper and sensible shoes, leaves with Beauty, worth £20, under her left arm.”
In this case of Beauty and the cat-napping ‘beast’, as in the original fairy tale and even the Disney version, one has to feel more than a little bit sorry for the ‘beast’. Miss Cox, the MP’s mistress, is 36 and has been carrying on an affair with the 51-year-old Hemming for the past eleven years. Mrs. Hemming, 53, has three children with the MP.
She said that she and her husband had an arrangement whereby he split his time between her and Miss Cox, who has a five-year-old daughter for Hemming. Three days before the burglary, Hemming had given his wife a ‘birthday present’ – moving out of the family home – but then got angry because he said his wife was keeping his mail.
Mrs. Hemming said that the unfortunate burglary came about when she drove to Miss Cox’s home to give her husband his mail. While Mrs. Hemming later claimed in Court that she had no recollection of taking up the cat, she initially told the police, “I thought not only has he replaced me, he has replaced our cats. So I picked it up.”
Mrs. Hemming was found guilty and is now awaiting sentencing. Burglary carried a maximum sentence of 14 years jail but the starting point in Mrs. Hemming’s case is nine months custody but this could be reduced to a conditional discharge or community service.
Her husband, the unrepentant MP, John Hemming, who supposedly had at least 26 affairs during his marriage, said that he did not think the case would affect his political position in a “direct sense”. He believes that the performance of the British economy in 2015 would have far more of an effect than the trial.
Comments on the case have been extremely revealing about how different people view the same incident. Animal lovers feel that Mrs. Hemming should be jailed for stealing the cat and her sentence should be even more severe since the cat has not been seen since the night it was kitnapped. Other people have commented on the ‘injustice’ meted out to Mrs. Hemming in that she could be jailed for stealing Miss Cox’s cat but Miss Cox is allowed to get away scot-free with stealing Mrs. Hemming’s husband. One writer even described it as ‘catastrophic’.
The problem, for many, is that Mr. Hemming’s behaviour is not an issue either for his political party or, seemingly, his constituents. It is also very low down on the scale of British political scandals. Within the past two years alone, there have been at least two big ones.
In January 2010 the First Minister of Northern Ireland, Peter Robinson, stepped aside for six weeks following revelations of his wife’s involvement in an extramarital affair, her attempted suicide and allegations that he had failed to declare property details of loans she had procured for her lover to develop a business venture.
On 29 May 2010 Chief Treasury Secretary, David Laws, resigned from the Cabinet and was referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards after the Daily Telegraph published details of Laws claiming around £40,000 in expenses on a second home owned by a secret gay partner between 2004 and 2009 whilst House of Commons rules have prevented MP’s from claiming second home expenses on properties owned by a partner since 2006.
Robinson is still in his post. Hemming will remain an MP. The only casualty is Laws. There is a moral in here somewhere and it is not whether Laws ‘has’ or ‘have’ been broken.
Tony Deyal was last seen saying that the head of Nike’s PR was speechless when this headline ran, ‘Tiger Woods Uses His Own Balls, Says Nike.’ He was then asked, “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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