Had Corbyn been to a Savile Row leg-tickler?
JEREMY Corbyn in smart suit shocker! Labour’s leader, the Compo of the Commons, came flapping into the House yesterday in, I think, a new outfit. Had he been busy at Marks & Sparks over the weekend? Had Shadow Leader of the House Chris Bryant taken him off to see some inside-leg tickler on Savile Row?
Mr Corbyn wore a blue shirt, red tie, dark suit and had given his hair a mow. It did look better. And yet…
The contribution he made to a Prime Ministerial statement on the latest European Council meeting was far too long and was therefore delivered at a gabble, full of fluffs. Angela Merkel became Angle, the word ‘dilute’ became ‘delight’. When he reached the word ‘finally’ the Commons gave a ragged cheer.
The day, beginning with Defence Questions, was burdened by foreign-affairs glumness: wars, weaponry, the immigration crisis, the European Union renegotiation impasse and more. Gravity smouldered in the corner of the national tent. Andrew Rosindell (Con, Romford) was even wearing the first poppy of the season. All Souls’ Day hovered in one’s mind.
Beside David Cameron on the Treasury bench sat Commons Leader Chris Grayling, named in several newspapers recently as a leading candidate for the chop. Some say this is because Mr Grayling is a prominent Eurosceptic. Others suggest it is simply that Mr Cameron thinks the Leader of the House is – technical term – useless.
Poor Grayling. Melancholy colonised his chops. From time to time he sniffed his fingertips, as though checking that they did not smell of death. We had some chicken like that in our fridge the other day. Ponged to Heaven. Even the dogs declined it. The Grayling brow was corrugated by frowns which looked like isobars on a stormy weather map. Mr Cameron may well have beamed a smile at this doomed Dobbin. He may well have cuddled him and pinched his cheeks and said ‘loving your work, Chris’. If he did any of these things, I missed them.
As any good stockman knows, there comes a time when you have to despatch the older, less productive beasts to the slaughter-house and it is easier to do that if you have not given them a human name and come to like them. Mr Cameron has never become over-fond of Mr Grayling. And vice versa, perhaps.
Defence Questions not only gave us the eternal joy of Michael Fallon, a man who makes Stephen Hawking sound like Groucho Marx, but also brought Labour’s new Shadow Secretary to the oche for her first Question Time. This Eagle is twin of Angela. Yes, there are two of them. She is arguably the less glamorous of these pin-ups, her wardrobe owing more to old British Rail upholsterings than to Fenwick’s Ladies’ Fashions. Yet I love her. In a platonic way. She is just so wonderfully English. Ernie Bevin in drag. Nora Batty in her heyday.
SHE scored runs yesterday by taking a tilt at the Chinese as a cyber-warfare threat. With the Chinese president about to arrive on a state visit, this was deliciously undiplomatic – and rather effective.
In the caves of Tora Bora or the souks of Syria or wherever it is (West Bromwich? Castle Combe?) that Britain’s enemies these days suck their betel nut- stained teeth and plot revenge on the infidel, they presumably watch the BBC Parliament Channel as closely as the rest of us.
When they see Mr Fallon on parade, how they must chuckle at his unrealistic boasts about British military heft. But yesterday, I fancy, their wheezes and cackles will have died on their lips as they examined this new Shadow Defence Secretary, this Eagle, this one-woman argument for the burkha.
‘Mustafa, my brother, who is this terrifying vision before us? See how she defies mighty China! That voice, so angular, so piercing: aieeee! Let us flee, my friend.’ And with that, the devils of Isis run for the horizon, leaving their goat curry bubbling on the camp fire.