The Archbish went off on a peculiar rant – had he been at the chalice?
HAWKISH eyeballs swivelled in watery sockets and ageing, rattly chests inflated with indignation. The Upper House had begun debating the Government’s latest Rwanda Bill. Yes, their lordships had an attack of the most almighty if wheezy conniptions. We were facing Nazism. It was the end of British oxygen.
One chap indeed said that if the Bill passed, ‘we shall be living in a different land, breathing a different air’. With that, ex-newspaper hack Lord Hennessy (Crossbencher) sank back to his red leather bench, seemingly almost overcome with sobs. He had to be given a consoling pat by a chum.
The very oxygen of England would be tarnished? From the sound of some peers’ lungs, that would push them into the abyss. And yet these opponents of the Bill simultaneously complained it was pifflingly inconsequential. When not surging with emotion, the old gaspers were giggling at the Government’s uselessness.
A man in a dress near the Throne started wheedling in a type of voice the comedian Peter Cook used for nerds. On closer examination, this was the Archbishop of Canterbury come to preach that admirers of the Bill were rotters and Antichrists.
The Government was ‘damaging our unity’, whined the Most Rev EL Wisty (sorry, Welby). Polls suggest the country is in fact near-united in wanting illegal immigration to end, but hey ho. The Archbish went off on a peculiar rant about how bishops did not take a party whip. Had he been at the chalice?
Lord German (who is in fact Welsh) was also close to breaking point. He led a Lib Dem effort to kill the Rwanda policy stone-dead. The Bill would hurt ‘our place on the world stage’, bawled his Krautship. People like him often tell Brexit already did that. It’s hard to keep up.
He complained that the Rwanda Bill ‘asks us to believe black is white’. That unfortunate phrase was echoed by Lord (Ken) Clarke, who burbled away from his wheelchair for ages like a club bore. ‘Rwanda’s not as bad as some African countries,’ he conceded. It was all starting to sound like a Ukip rally, but the ‘closet racists’ this time were the Leftists.
A former Cabinet secretary, Lord Butler (Crossbencher), told peers they were ‘wasting their time’ on ‘a kamikaze mission’ but they might as well have a bash because it was their democratic duty. When unelected parliamentarians talk of defending democracy, one’s head swims a little. Another Whitehall poohbah, Lord McDonald of Salford, insufferably snooty, had a Baldricklike cunning plan.
He suggested that the Lords should agree to the Bill but only if months of extra training were given to officials. Classic Sir Humphrey tactic.
The Bishop of Durham, wet as cottage cheese, said Rwanda’s benefits weren’t generous enough, language- training would be needed for migrants, their mental health might be harmed and some Rwandans weren’t always terribly nice.
We kept being told that the Bishop of Bristol (herself not the mildest of ladies, nicknamed ‘Vicious Viv’) had been unable to join the debate. Instead we had the Bishop of London. Beside her, the Bishop of Durham closed his eyes like a organrecital goer enduring a tough passage of Messiaen. The Bishop of St Edmundsbury also spoke. He was a ringer for the vicar from Dad’s Army.
Lawyer peers fretted about Dicey’s first principle of the rule of law. Lord Marlesford (Con), voice nowadays high as a piccolo, said a patch of Libyan desert would have been better than Rwanda.
Viscount Hailsham, the noted moat-owner, came over all Donald Sinden and hammed up Pastor Niemoller’s ‘ first they came for the socialists...’ riff about Hitler. But a few peers did support the Bill. Lord ( Ken) Baker argued that extremism would flourish unless governments controlled our borders. And Lord Green of Deddington said our population could grow by 20 million in just 25 years.
I say, Marjorie, that should be good for house prices.