Outrage Olympics! MPs compete to be most appalled
HOME Secretary Amber Rudd lowered chin to chest and announced that Britain believed in tolerance (she actually said ‘tolerancy’). That meant, she averred with the seriousness of a pox doctor conveying grave news, that ‘we will not tolerate any gwoups who delibewately waise hate’.
Miss Rudd, like the late Woy Jenkins, has an endearing difficulty with the letter R.
The message was clear. We’re so tolerant, we will not tolerate intolerance!
The House of Commons had, with the encouragement of its obtrusive Speaker, succumbed to another bout of unanimous pique. When they all agree on something, it becomes less a debate than a competition to see who can be most aggrieved. ‘I’m appalled.’ ‘No, you’re not! I’m much more appalled than you.’
Readers, this was the Outrage Olympics. Who could win the prize? Diane Abbott with her moist-lipped simpering? Yvette Cooper with her elfin, Playschool-presenter head wobbling? Or Miss Rudd, pushing rudeness about the US president as far as she could?
That provocative man in the White House had retweeted messages from Britain First, a nasty (and tiny) outfit of which few of us had previously heard. The Twittersphere was aghast, as were MPs, that President Trump had ‘given succour’ to such a group. ‘Given succour’ is the sort of language parliamentarians use on such occasions.
And so they all, er, took to Twitter and the airwaves and now to their hind legs in the Commons to wax indignant on the matter. Which just created more publicity for horrid Britain First. If this row was honestly about denying Britain First publicity, it was instantly selfdefeating. Or was it more about Remainers trying to harm Brexit, and reduce the possibility of Mr Trump visiting Britain and agreeing to a big trade deal with post-EU Britain? Hmmn. There was more than a little of that going on.
BEFORE signalling an Urgent Question, Speaker Bercow hunched his shoulders and said he was sure Hon Members would wish to denounce ‘the purveyors’ of racism. Purveyors. It is a noun we usually reserve for posh food manufacturers – ‘purveyors of marmalade to the Royal Household’. Such is the strangulated vocabulary of Bercow.
He was a bit eggy round the eyeballs yesterday. Tends to look like that when he has been overdoing the agitation.
The Urgent Question was put by a Blairite blowhard, one Stephen Doughty. He suggested President Trump was ‘either a racist or incompetent or unthinking or all three’ and he wanted the US ambassador to be ‘summoned’ and told what the British Establishment thought of the president’s ‘typically irresponsible’ behaviour.
Miss Abbott, shadow home secretary, said of Labour that ‘we bow to no one in our affection and respect for the American people’. Sure thing, Diane! She would not even mention Mr Trump’s name, preferring to call him ‘the 45th president’.
Miss Rudd said ‘ we will continue to speak fweely and fwankly’ to the US government.
Luciana Berger (Lab, Liverpool Wavertree) gasped about the ‘horrific actions’ of Mr Trump. Khalid Mahmood (Lab, Perry Barr) seemed to want him arrested the moment he set foot at Heathrow. Paul Flynn (Lab, Newport W) went off on one about this man’s finger being ‘on the nuclear button’. Actually, if he is tweeting it is probably on his mobile telephone.
Peter Bone (Con, Wellingborough) hoped Theresa May could persuade Mr Trump to delete his Twitter account. Hear hears. Miss Cooper (Lab, Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) delivered herself of a melodramatic soliloquy in which she feared Mr Trump had ‘given a rocket boost’ to Britain First’s profile. Well stop doing more of the same, missus! Many Labour MPs wanted Mr Trump’s proposed trip to Britain to be stopped. Imran Hussain (Lab, Bradford E) called it ‘an all-expenses-paid visit’. At least he didn’t mention the ‘slap-up tea’ at Buckingham Palace.
Miss Rudd fell back each time on a formula that the invitation had been extended and accepted but no date set. The Government was eager, when it discerned hateful political activity, to ‘call it out’. She also spoke of how ‘we are always stepping up’. Our political class may dislike Mr Trump but it loves Americanisms.
Among those denouncing the ‘inflammatory’ Trump was Naz Shah (Lab, Bradford W), who was last year suspended from her party for suspected, er, anti-Semitism.
Steve Double (Con, St Austell and Newquay) was amazed that the US president had the time to follow Twitter. Philip Hollobone (Con, Kettering) had a subtle question about how ‘politics and Twitter is a toxic mix’ which led to ‘immediate outrage’. MPs chose to see this as a criticism of Mr Trump rather than as a wry observation of their own priggishness.