Bottomley bows out

I have to declare my confusion about Health Secretary Virginia
Bottomley. Not that this revelation is anything new to this page.
This time I am bewildered that the usually forthright minister, who
never has any difficulty trying to defend her actions, choosing to
bow out from the performance of her career.

Scheduled to appear at Chichester Crown Court on 10 February,
she took the magnanimous decision of allowing an understudy, in the
shape of a Queen’s Counsel, to represent her in the story of Sharon
Towes, accused of stabbing a man and temporarily deprived of a
secure hospital bed.

I wonder whether the QC now has the dubious honour of being
known as the ‘occasional’ Health Secretary-in-waiting?