There’s no doubt Priti wears the pantaloons over at the Home Office
… sees Ms Patel make short work of an SNP busybody
Afight broke out in the house of Commons yesterday. It was one of those fang-baring, duelling-pistols-atd awn ding dongs you really miss when you’re out of the Westminster swim.
Can you believe some politicians are advocating a semi-circular debating chamber when the house of Commons is refurbished to make political debate less confrontational? Pah! If you want the quiet life then join a knitting circle.
The row occurred during the end of what had been a pretty hum-drum session of home Office questions and Secretary of State Priti Patel was up on her clackers issuing an ’umble apology. The recipient was Yvette Cooper (Lab, Pontefract) who had complained that the Conservative party still hadn’t apologised after one of its activists was recently jailed for threatening her with violence. The home Secretary was happy to oblige.
‘You can take it from me that I am hugely apologetic for what she’s had to go through,’ said
Priti. As the ‘yer, yers’ pinged around the chamber, Ms Cooper nodded along gravely, allowing this little swell of contrition to wash over her.
It was at this point that Ms Patel noticed a broad grin smeared across the jowls of the SNP’s busybody home affairs spokeswoman Joanna Cherry. The minister’s eyes widened, her eyebrows shot up like two jumplenge ing slugs. ‘I see that the honourable lady on the opposite benches is chucklin’ away,’ she hissed, waving a shellacked nail over the dispatch box. ‘This is a very serious matter… not a laughin’ matter!’
Ms Cherry’s mouth recoiled as though she’d just swallowed a golf ball. She tried to maintain a look of nonchalance, keeping one leg folded, cowboy-style, over the other but it was clear this chalto her customary position atop the moral high ground had spooked her.
‘We are laughing because you were being insincere,’ she gobbled, making a bad situation worse. ‘I think it’s fair to say given that remark clearly the insincerity lies with the honourable and learned lady,’ Ms Patel responded coolly.
‘We’ll see,’ heckled Cherry. ‘Yes,’ said Priti jutting out her lower jaw. ‘We will see...’
Tough cookie, Priti. having carelessly allowed herself to be forced out of Theresa May’s cabinet after holding unofficial meetings with Israeli ministers, many had her down as an early casualty in this government. But yesterday’s performance showed she won’t be pushed off a cliff again so easily.
There remain several talented ministers beneath her in her department, some might say more blessed with intellectual rigour, but watching them all sat on the front bench there could be no doubt it is Priti who wears the pantaloons over at the home Office.
KIT Malthouse and Brandon Lewis hovered around her obediently. her immigration secretary Kevin foster was permanently at hand jotting down orders. Every now and again there would be an instructive point of the finger at Victoria Atkins, another of her ministers. Incidentally, I can quite see Atkins, who reminds me of an ambitious young lawyer from one of those glossy American legal dramas, rising further up the ministerial ladder.
After the smoke from this little firework display had cleared, I noticed a defeated Cherry had exited the chamber. gone to wash some of the egg off her face somewhere, perhaps. She eventually reentered at the session’s conclusion to issue a point of order explaining her behaviour, desperate to claw back a crumb of dignity.
She cited a report by Amnesty International which claimed that she was the second mostabused politician in the United Kingdom behind Labour’s Diane Abbott.
She simply wanted to express how exasperated she felt about it all. Sensing another fight brewing, the Speaker issued a little pep talk, reminding members that any abuse they received should be reported.
By now though the home Secretary was already heading for the exit, that enigmatic smirk of hers, intentional or otherwise, stapled to the side of her face.