Sucking his teeth, Green looked like old man Steptoe
AS the Commons met for its last Prime Minister’s Questions for a few weeks, we start with the Chamber’s latest behavioural updates. First, Clive Lewis (Lab, Norwich S) whipped out his mobile telephone and started taking snapshots from his seat. Selfies seem to have reached the Commons. Second, a Scots Nat, Hannah Bardell (Livingston), wore a football shirt. She used it to make some point about Scotland’s female football team.
It is not that long since Livingston was represented by Robin Cook. As footballers might say, he played in a different league from the rather limited Miss Bardell. Theresa May began PMQs by thanking parliamentary staff for their service in what had been ‘a particularly challenging year’.
She was referring to the difficulties posed by terrorist attacks but there was a personal edge to that ‘challenging’, too. After recent weeks, the Prime Minister must feel pretty drained and ready for some Alpine yomping with the long-suffering Philip.
And yet, despite her alleged weaknesses, she dealt briskly with Jeremy Corbyn yesterday. I almost wrote that she handbagged him. This did not look like a Prime Minister in any danger, either from her own MPs (who cheered her loudly yesterday) or from an Opposition leader who once again settled for an attack on pay in the public sector. On the day the BBC’s millionaires’ salaries were disclosed!
As it happened, no backbencher raised the BBC pay scales. Were they scared of upsetting the overmighty Corporation? Mrs May did later pass subtle comment on that sorry matter, saying that ‘as we’ve seen from figures released today, some in the public sector are very well paid’.
David Davis, Boris Johnson, Amber Rudd and Philip Hammond were all on the Government front bench. Recent reports suggest that some of them have been at odds recently but yesterday they managed not to jeer at one another. Indeed, they seemed to be getting on quite well. On the other side of Mrs May sat Damian Green, who is the Government’s First Secretary (unofficial deputy prime minister).
Mr Green has an unfortunate habit of sucking his teeth. It makes him look like old man Steptoe and he might want to avoid doing it when he is sitting within camera-shot of the PM.
Geoffrey Robinson (Lab, Coventry NW), one of the House’s Model T Fords, had first question on the Order Paper. It was almost inaudible, either because the microphones were not working or because Mr Robinson had lost his voice. As an MP interested in the car industry, he wanted Mrs May to consider Coventry as a centre for driverless-vehicle technology. After all, he explained, her Government seemed to be pretty much without a pilot. Ho ho. It was a reasonable gag, perhaps, but maybe not the best way to win industrial- subsidy support for your constituency. THE
exchanges between Mrs May and Mr Corbyn basically involved him alleging that the Chancellor thought public-sector workers were ‘overpaid’, while Mrs May argued that the only way to pay state employees more was to keep restoring the economy.
Mrs May also had a swipe at Labour for changing its position on university fees. In the election campaign they said they would write off students’ debts. Now, er, they have changed their mind.
Labour’s education spokesman, Angela Rayner, dominated the Opposition front bench – a cuckoo in a nest of wrens – and bawled a few incoherent words at Mrs May. The smile on Mrs Rayner’s face rather gave the game away: she thinks it all a tremendous joke.
Stooge watch: Helen Whately (Con, Faversham & Mid Kent) did some vigorous greasing on the NHS and Richard Drax (S Dorset) wished Mrs May a ‘well-deserved break’. It can also be noted that when Pat McFadden (Lab, Wolverhampton Se) asked about Brexit, the minister whispering advice into Mrs May’s ear was Mr Hammond. Boris and DD might want to get themselves into the Chamber earlier on a Wednesday to stop Mr Hammond pinching pole position next to Herself.