Kelly’s Eye

THERE was a story while I was away last week about an American husband holding up signs with messages to his wife as he stood next to her while she was in labour.

While causing me to shudder at how Mrs Kelly would have reacted had I pulled the same trick when she underwent the same ordeal, what the episode most reminded me of was those MPs posturing in the Commons recently with their “Silenced” signs after Boris Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament.

The usual attention-craving suspects fall over one another to post their parliamentary selfies on social media and preen about being part of a “rebel alliance”, all desperate to cast themselves as Luke Skywalker in an updated Westminster version of Star Wars.

The only part of their fantasy that rings true is that they inhabit a galaxy far, far away from an electorate they are anxious to prevent from voting until they feel certain any meaningful Brexit is sabotaged.An electorate they claim Johnson is whipping up by using words such as “surrender” and “betrayal” (which accurately describe how many voters feel) while exhibiting no compunction themselves about deploying terms such as “knifing”, “lynching” and “beheading” against opponents.

They are no more rebels than their latest plans to take over the Commons would represent a “government of national unity”. On the contrary, their tactics of delay and prevarication are a classic establishment stitch-up.

I still have reservations about Boris Johnson’s chances of winning over sufficient voters, particularly in the North, to command a working majority at the next election – whenever our MPs eventually deign to allow us one. But the signs are growing that the Commons space cadets are his most effective recruiting sergeants.