Ambition matched only by duplicity - and 欠如（する） of talent: QUENTIN LETTS on why Nicky Morgan, known as 'Ms U-Turn', is out of her depth

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Nicky Morgan, the former Education 長官, with her £950 捕らえる、獲得する

Which 政治家，政治屋 recently said: 'One of the golden 支配するs of politics is that if your 対抗者 is attacking you 本人自身で, then they are 動揺させるd'?

And which 政治家，政治屋 took a personal swipe at Theresa May for wearing a £995 pair of leather trousers and 示唆するd they were the 高さ of political vulgarity?

Surely, the answers couldn't have been the same person?

But yes. Step 今後 Nicky Morgan, the former Education 長官. And another classic example of the behaviour of the woman who has been 愛称d 'Ms U-Turn'.

Her tetchy comment about Mrs May （機の）カム after the PM was photographed at home wearing her favourite 週末 trousers.

Designed by Amanda Wakeley, they are brown (or, if you are a fashionista, 'bitter chocolate'). Mrs M ay, who is keen on 着せる／賦与するs, also wore a pair of Burberry trainers and a loose jumper with a cowl 最高の，を越す. The photograph was ーするつもりであるd to show our workaholic PM in 緩和 方式.

Mrs Morgan, not much of a fashion model herself, took a 薄暗い 見解（をとる）. 'I don't have leather trousers,' she shuddered in an interview. 'I don't think I've spent that much on anything apart from my wedding dress.

'My 晴雨計 is always: 'How am I going to explain this in Loughborough market?' (That's the town in Mrs Morgan's Leicestershire 選挙区／有権者.)'

As a cat might say: 'Miaow'!

It is rare for any woman 公然と to diss another's dress sense. For a recently-解雇（する）d 閣僚 大臣 to do so about the leader who gave her the heave-売春婦 was remarkable. Fight! Fight!

Nicky Morgan （人命などを）奪う，主張するs to be both a modern churchgoer and an ardent feminist. Her 発言／述べるs were hardly evangelical or sisterly.

More to the point, they were rather hypocritical, too, as she herself has been seen carrying a £950 捕らえる、獲得する from upmarket Mulberry.

The photograph of the PM with her leather trousers was meant to?show her in 緩和 方式

In her days as 大臣 for Women in the Cameron 政府, she deprecated the マスコミ's 利益／興味 in women's 外見s, （人命などを）奪う，主張するing it was sexist.

How can she square that with her denunciation of Mrs May's 着せる／賦与するs sense? Maybe it is not just the PM's trousers that have a hint of 'bitter chocolate' about them.

But then consistency and grace have seldom been much discernible in Nicky Morgan since this ambitious but clumsily duplicitous 政治家，政治屋 first entered the ありふれたs as an eager Cameroon in 2010.

She has been an MP for just six years yet already 提起する／ポーズをとるs as some sort of grandee. If nothing else, Mrs Morgan is an example of the hazards of 促進するing novices to high office.

Just over a year ago she was even, absurdly, talking up her chances of 後継するing Cameron as Tory leader.

When she was elected an MP in 2010, she was little known outside her ごくわずかの 選挙区／有権者. Born in 1972, she had been 後部d in comfortable Surrey, the daughter of a Tory 議員.

Nicky Morgan （人命などを）奪う，主張するs to be both a modern churchgoer and an ardent feminist

She was 長，率いる girl at her minor public school, Surbiton High, but an English teacher, Marilyn Mason, 解任するd she was 'reasonably able' rather than an exceptional talent.

She was a 'very polite, good girl' who worked hard and was a 'perfectly competent' actor in the school play, her former teacher told 無線で通信する 4's Profile. At that, the older woman's 発言する／表明する 追跡するd away.

Young Nicola had plainly not been one of those かみそり-sharp pupils teachers love to remember.

Even so, she went on to 熟考する／考慮する 法律 at St Hugh's College, Oxford, where she twice failed to be chosen as chairman of the university's 保守的な 協会.

In the second contest, she was beaten by Dan Hannan, the brilliant 政治家，政治屋 who went on to become became a Eurosceptic MEP and one of the philosophical 軍隊s behind the Leave （選挙などの）運動をする.

Morgan had to content herself with a ばく然と Sloane Rangerish college life, bouncing around Oxfordshire parties and honking away about 地元の and Young 保守的な politics rather than loftier 概念s of liberty and aspiration.

After qual ifying as a solicitor in 1994, she worked in 法人組織の／企業の 法律 and helped run Battersea 保守的なs before the Party's poor 業績／成果 in the 1997 選挙. She went part-time to have a baby after marrying architect Jonathan Morgan. Their wedding was held at Inner 寺's chapel, a redoubt of the 合法的な 設立. Jonathan is now a 地元の 政治家，政治屋 in Leicestershire.

Her 選挙 to the ありふれたs was her second を刺す at that ごくわずかの seat. Celebrating, she said 'the political system has been 粉々にするd' and 'the time for a new politics is here'. What a 過激な she sounded. It did not last.

New MPs divide 概して into three 部類s. There are those who say little and 沈む to obscurity. There are those who say what they think and are rebuked by the Whips for 存在 too 独立した・無所属-minded. Then there are the shameless stooges who do what the Whips want and keep spouting the party line.

During the first months of the 連合 ― when Theresa May was Home 長官 ― it became （疑いを）晴らす Nicky Morgan was one of those incorrigible greasers.

Up she kept bouncing in the House, to utter the 認可するd スローガン of the day. 負かす／撃墜するing Street was 明確に delighted to have such malleable clay at its 処分.

Within three months she had been made 議会の 私的な 長官 to universities 大臣 David Willetts, a いつか Thatcherite who had become as wet as a duck's 残余. Though Mrs Morgan was MP for a university town, she managed to swallow any 保留（地）／予約s about Willetts' 計画（する）s to raise college 料金s.

The dutiful 署名／調印する 監視する was once more doing Sir's bidding. Her devotion to the 政府 saw her made a junior Whip in 2012. The に引き続いて year she became a 財務省 大臣 ― a heady ascent for so green a 議会人.

Mrs Morgan's inexperience showed at the despatch box, where she 答える／応じるd to tricky questions with shouty スローガンs and bulgy-注目する，もくろむd 星／主役にするs of c rossness. The （ドイツなどの）首相／（大学の）学長, George Osborne, had identified her as a reliable gofer, but I understand he did not regard her as a grade A intellect.

During the first months of the 連合 ― when Theresa May was Home 長官 ― it became （疑いを）晴らす Nicky Morgan was one of those incorrigible greasers

The one 政策 on which she 出発／死d from Tory modernisers was gay marriage. In 2013, before a 解放する／自由な 投票（する）, she said marriage should be only between a man and woman. She 特記する／引用するd her church beliefs and 公式文書，認めるd that her 選挙権を持つ／選挙人s had made plain their 不一致 with the idea.

However, a year later she changed her mind. But by then, you see, she had become Education 長官, with 責任／義務 for 'equalities'.

It is 価値（がある） 引用するing the explanation she gave for her volte-直面する.

From her comfortable new 省, she said: 'I had a lot of 選挙権を持つ／選挙人s who asked me to 投票（する） in a particular way and I listened to them and it was an 問題／発行する of 良心, too, but I have certainly learned an awful lot doing this 職業.

'I wish people had come 今後 earlier to say '現実に, we'd like you to support gay marriage'. 現実に, I think it was something we needed to discuss and 審議.'

She also told her 地元の newspaper: 'I think we could have 扱うd the whole thing 異なって and taken more time to have more of a public 審議 about it instead of just ploughing on.'

An '問題／発行する of 良心' had been relegated to 単に a 事柄 of 'just ploughing on', had it?

Morgan was talking up her chances of 後継するing Cameron as Tory leader

Does not that, along with her waffle about '審議' and her blustering repetition of '現実に', 示唆する a 確かな elasticity of 見解（をとる）, a 傾向 to procrastination until she knew which way the 勝利，勝つd is blowing?

Her 前任者 as Education 長官, Michael Gove, had been やめる different. Bravely, and with mischievous elan, the low-born Gove 格闘するd with the 'blob' of the Education 設立 ― the teaching unions, Left-wing think 戦車／タンクs, educationalists and their dumbed-負かす／撃墜する 合意.

Gove made enemies, as a bold 大臣 always will. Cameron took fright and 取って代わるd him with bland Mrs Morgan.

On taking over, she （人命などを）奪う，主張するd there would 'certainly be no 支援する- pedalling on 改革（する）s', but her words were soon demonstrably untrue.

She 始める，決める about 取り去る／解体するing some of Gove's 政策s, for instance on snap 査察s of schools and on giving 長，率いる teachers the 権利 to punish pupils by sending them for a run (the Left thought this an affront to their human 権利s and Mrs Morgan agreed).

Gove had 主張するd that parents should not take their children out of school ーに関して／ーの点で-time to go on foreign holidays. Mrs Morgan thought that too strict, even though there were serious 原則s at 火刑／賭ける about school discipline and children 行方不明の 決定的な lessons. But perhaps 原則s, like 良心, counted as 'just ploughing on'.

Mrs Morgan said that she would 'トン 負かす／撃墜する the rhetoric and have a 推論する／理由d 審議 based on what 作品'. There was that word '審議' popping up again. She uses it as a synonym for 延期する 先行する 降伏する.

She 追加するd: 'For those looking for an 観念的な sparring partner to do 戦う／戦い with, やめる 簡単に I'm not your woman.'

You could say that again! This one has all the ideology of a limp 立ち往生させる of spaghetti. And come the Tory leadership 戦う／戦い, who did she support? Michael Gove!

It was little wonder, then, that when chillaxed David Cameron was 後継するd as 総理大臣 by the rigorously bookish Mrs May, Nicky Morgan was 解雇する／砲火／射撃d.

Mrs May, after all, had いっそう少なく need for 記念品 women in the 閣僚.

Mrs Morgan took her 解雇／（訴訟の）却下 不正に, soon mocking Mrs May for, she （人命などを）奪う，主張するd, having 設立する it difficult to look her in the 注目する，もくろむ and cough out the bad news when 解任するing her. 'I had to help her utter the phrase: 'So you'd like to let me go,' ' she told Robert Peston on ITV.

It was やめる something to hear the serially indecisive Nicky Morgan criticise Mrs May for dithering. She also broke 閣僚 議定書s by 公表する／暴露するing that she had 衝突／不一致d with Mrs May over 移民／移住 政策s.

(漏れるd 閣僚 letters 示唆するd that the Home Office under Mrs May had 手配中の，お尋ね者 the children of 違法な 移民，移住（する）s to go to the 底（に届く） of the 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） for school places.)

This helped Mrs Morgan to polish her own 評判, but it did rather いっそう少なく for Tory まとまり.

Most 解雇（する）d 大臣s have the modesty to 受託する that politics is a team game and no one has a personal 権利 to remain in office. Most 解雇（する）d 大臣s have the nous not to deride a new 総理大臣.

Not so the clunky Nicky Morgan. No wonder that her old boss, George Osborne, looked a bit uneasy when his former subordinate plonked herself 負かす／撃墜する next to him on the ありふれたs 支援する （法廷の）裁判s. He has since been seen in different parts of the 議会.

She was soon taking to social マスコミ to criticise the new 政府's 政策 on 拡大するing grammar schools. She blurted that this was 'weird' and 'at best, a distraction, and at worst 危険 活発に 土台を崩すing six years of 進歩／革新的な education 改革（する）s'.

The same Nicky Morgan, as Education 長官, had just a few months earlier 認可するd the 拡大 of a grammar school in Kent. What a hypocrite.

必然的に, she has also been belly-aching about Brexit.

Last week she could be seen twitching like a 女／おっせかい屋 in the Article 50 審議 in the ありふれたs, taking the 見解（をとる） that the 政府 should 産する／生じる to greater 議会の scrutiny.

Yet at the same time she said it was 決定的な to '傷をいやす／和解させる the rife between 議会 and the people'.

Not for the first time, she was trying to またがる …に反対するing ends of one argument.

She also chided '大臣s ― from the 総理大臣 downwards ― to 奮起させる 同様に as engage on these 問題／発行するs'.

Such lofty 軽蔑（する） might have been easier to take from someone with a more 初めの turn of phrase, a better 記録，記録的な／記録する of innovative thinking, than the prosaic, lumpen, cliched Morgan.

She has tried to 同盟（する） herself to Remainers Anna Soubry and Ken Clarke but they ― both long-称する，呼ぶ／期間／用語 プロの／賛成の-Europeans with 独特の 発言する／表明するs and 水銀の flair ― are a class apart.

When you hear Nicky Morgan drearily trotting out the anti-Brexit line, it is hard to 結論する that this is anything but a second-rater coughing up received 見解（をとる）s like a garden bird regurgitating worms.

It is likely that the Loughborough seat will disappear in the coming 選挙区／有権者 境界 reviews. We must hope 心から that no new 保守的な 協会 is foolish enough to 可決する・採択する Ms U-Turn as its 候補者.

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