At times it felt like 649 MPs versus one... Truss
OVER in Labour’s half, there was cacophony, tumult, rapture. More a pack of clamorous coyotes than members of our national Parliament. On the other side of the Commons, cross-armed Conservatives shook their heads and rolled their eyes while some particularly disconsolate souls even mouthed the word: ‘Useless!’
The mood among ministers was not much perkier. The front bench was a grey sea of slackened jaws and slumped bellies. Glummer than the Long Room on a rainy day at Lord’s.
And to think Liz Truss wasn’t even all that bad at PMQs yesterday.
No, really – it was far from her worst performance at the despatch box, though that’s not a particularly high bar admittedly. It’s just that at times it felt like 649 MPs versus one, for all the pitiful support she received.
The Prime Minister deserves a scintilla of credit for at least trying to put a brave face on things. She strode in almost cockily, sporting a wide smile which aides may well have had to stretch across her face with the assistance of pliers and a couple of clothes pegs.
But, having taken her seat, one could sense the anxiety wriggling away at her innards as millipedes gnaw at rotting wood.
Next to her was new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt – who appeared even more agitated than she was.
He sat squeezing his left arm so tightly he reminded me of someone trying to extract the last remnants from an empty tube of Colgate. First question fell to Justin Madders (Lab, Ellesmere Port) who asked Truss why her previous chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng had lost his job but she remained in post.
Truss managed to step on the same rake as she did the previous week by starting her sentence with a Trussism. ‘Let me be clear...’ Thwack – Doh! Cue a chorus of derisory howls.
Soon Sir Keir Starmer was on his feet, inquiring about a forthcoming biography of the PM. ‘Apparently, it is going to be out by Christmas. Is that the release date or the title?’ he asked. Sir Keir is a man cursed with the comic timing of a sozzled wombat yet even he managed to make that gag hit the target. Even down-at-mouth Tories tittered. Miss Truss stood there thumbing and prodding the air clumsily.
She was ‘sorry’ and had ‘made mistakes’, she said. ‘Resign!’ came the unsympathetic cry opposite.
THE atmosphere in the chamber was dripping with nerve-twanging anticipation. Would the PM buckle under the pressure of it all? Would she collapse into a sobbing heap?
In the Strangers’ Gallery, Jeffrey Archer leant forward and surveyed the scene purposefully. Seeking inspiration for his next political potboiler, perhaps?
By the main entrance, Michael Gove nibbled his fingers and anxiously rearranged his spectacles. A gum- chewing football manager in the dying moments of extra time. Meanwhile, at the opposite end, Dame Margaret Beckett hurriedly tottered in late and took up a standing position by the Speaker’s chair.
Dame Margaret is now 79. How many young thrusters from Labour’s benches suddenly leapt from their seats to offer this still sprightly Grande Dame of Socialism a berth on which to rest her weary feet? Nada, zilch, zero. The unchivalrous swines.
Truss, though, was somehow managing to stand firm, giving Starmer short shrift over his refusal to condemn striking railway workers. Sir Keir, however, had his MPs behind him, joining him in a rowdy chorus of ‘Olés’ as he reeled off the raft of recent Government U-turns. ‘45p tax cut!’ he yelled. ‘Gone! Corporation tax cut — gone!... Economic credibility — gone!’ His deputy Angela Rayner wore an acidic grin, doubtless already dreaming about which drapes to hang at Dorneywood.
Ange, by the way, has dispensed with the garish footwear and is clad in elegant heels and with a demure new set of curls more suited to a would-be Deputy PMin-waiting. Echoes of Peter Mandelson convincing Robin Cook to ditch his tweed jackets and trim his little beard.
Speaking of Mandelson, Truss was reduced to conclude by ripping off one of the old reptile’s former sound-bites. Summoning whatever strength left in her, she gutsily informed the House: ‘I’m a fighter, not a quitter!’ Maybe so. But I fear that’s a matter now firmly out of her hands.