Garrotte fly-tippers with their own intestines, opined Sir Desmond. Some will say he’s a fruitcake... but he’s saner than the dullards
ANY MP who talks of garrotting litter louts with their intestines must be a loony, some will say. Equally, he might be the only sensible chap in the whole soggy Parliament.
Sir Desmond Swayne, 67, was perching on his usual twig in the Commons, listening to a flurry of banalities at environment questions. MPs were discussing flytipping. Chi Onwurah (Lab, Newcastle Central) claimed she had ‘a 15-point plan for rubbish’.
For a nasty moment it seemed she might be about to list every point. An eager new environment minister, Robbie Moore, a right little goody-goody, boasted that ‘this government is taking tough action on fly-tipping’. He chirruped about ‘crackdowns’ and ‘ring-fencing’ and ‘investment in enforcement’. Such are the lifeless phrases with which civil servants fill ministers’ scripted answers. It is the jargon of an inert elite that does not try grasping the public’s attention.
Ministers are not duty-bound to speak the words officials give them. They could write words of their own. But that would take originality.
The Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle tried raising morale. ‘Bring the Wombles back,’ he said. The quip raised a brief smile but ennui soon reformed and the witless Moore and Labour were back to exchanging partisan boasts.
While they squabbled, yet more mattresses and prams were being dumped in laybys. Offenders know there is little chance of being caught. Fines are clearly no deterrent.
SIR Desmond was nearing breaking point. Someone asked: ‘ What further steps could the minister take?’ A Tory woman droned: ‘My constituents deserve better.’ Brentford and Isleworth’s Ruth Cadbury (Lab) wanted to know the ‘timetable for responding to the public account committee’s report on waste reforms’. Will Brentfordians slap their thighs and say ‘that Cadbury speaks for us all’? Or will they be stupefied by indifference?
A bird can sit on his twig only so long during such blether before an itchiness takes hold. Sir Desmond had reached this point. So he flew to his feet – he is a spry old boy, with calf muscles as trim as steel hawsers – and bawled: ‘ The penalties are insufficient! If offenders were garrotted with their own intestines, there would be fewer of them.’ Having shot his bolt, Sir Desmond gave a small shudder of despair and resumed his seat. The outburst drew laughter. Bewilderment, too.
Minister Moore had no idea what to say. His civil servants had not primed him for such an eruption.
Some will say Sir Desmond is a fruitcake. But they would be wrong. Unconventional though he may be, he is saner than the dullards.
He has been in the Commons since 1997. When he arrived, Labour MPs used to howl during his speeches, imitating werewolves.
During Sir Tony Blair’s Iraq War, Sir Desmond did not muck about. He signed up for war service with his territorial regiment. Later he was a whip and an international aid minister. He was, furthermore, one of the few MPs to speak out against the madness of lockdown, which he attacked with exasperated gusto.
Old Swayne can’t abide the platitudes of modern politics. He senses that voters laugh at these ninnies with their ‘15-point plans’ and their formulaic Commons waffle.
He was not (I think) being literal about garrotting fly-tippers. Instead he made the point that hardly anyone gives a monkey’s about an under-enforced law that scares no one. And he made the House laugh. It took notice of him. He cut through the seal fat of political cliché.
A Commons with more Swaynes and fewer Moores or Onwurahs would be a healthier House.