AT LEAST A FEW HAD DECENCY TO LOOK ASHAMED
No sooner had the tellers called out the result than Labour’s benches erupted like an angry pub brawl. Their face masks mercifully spared us the seething flashes of gums and bared teeth but their loud cries still reverberated around the chamber. ‘Shame!’ they yelped. ‘Sleaze!’ The usually mild-mannered Lucy Powell (Lab, Manchester C) shrieked something inaudible at the Speaker’s chair, sending Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s peepers into a tumbledryer spin. Dinosaur John McDonnell (Lab, Hayes & Harlington) was soon up on his high hooves: ‘Not in my name!’
In stark contrast, the opposite bench sat in stony silence. Some Conservative MPs started twiddling their thumbs. others stared up at the ceiling – hoping some intergalactic force might beam them out from the sheer awkwardness. They were embarrassed. Ashamed, even. And as well they might be. For they had just sensationally voted to block the suspension of one of their own, former environment minister owen Paterson, who has been found by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner to have misused his position as an MP to lobby on behalf of two firms who had been stuffing his pockets full of wonga. And, to make matters worse, rather than accept their man had been caught with his mitts in the cookie jar, the Government inexplicably chose to table an amendment to overhaul the entire system that scrutinised him.
Setting up a body, with its own set of procedures – oh, and with a pre-selected Tory chair while they were at it. Even a tin-pot, Kalashnikov-toting tyrant might well blush at such brazen disregard for procedure.
To think how we marvelled just two weeks ago as they mourned poor Sir David Amess in such collective harmony. And yet here politics was – back at its worst.
What a rotten, nose-peggingly putrid place Parliament can be. Stridently making the Government’s case was Leader of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg who delivered a performance worthy of a mafioso’s attorney.
His slithering style did few favours to Paterson, perched three rows behind, his eyes lifeless. Mogg argued that the current system was busted. It needed changing.
Yes, but why now, asked his incredulous opposite number, Thangam Debbonaire. Mogg cockily adjusted his specs. Despite the Government issuing a threeline whip, it was clear a number of MPs wanted nothing to do with it.
Father of the House Peter Bottomley said the current system may be rotten but so was the timing of this amendment.
Aaron Bell (Con, Newcastle-under-Lyme) accused the Government of ‘moving the goalposts at the last minute’.
Good for you, Mr Bell! Though stand by for a lengthy spell on the backbenches.
Some opposition MPs were woefully guileless. Maybe that was to be expected. But since Paterson has claimed the tawdry saga was partly responsible for his wife’s suicide, their case could have been made far stronger with an injection of subtlety.
‘This is the most corrupt government in history!’ boomed Richard Burgon (Lab, Leeds) whose contributions dismay even his own colleagues. ‘Siddown!’ yelled the
Tory benches. I noticed that Labour MPs did not demur.
A more velvet-gloved approached arrived in the shape of Mother of the House Harriet Harman. She expressed ‘utmost sympathy’ for Paterson. In the 20 years they had been in the House together, he had shown her nothing but ‘kindness and courtesy’.
But, she pointed out, MPs could not just ‘make the rules and set them aside when we have misgivings about the outcome.’ Nicely done. Far more effective than her colleagues’ fog-horning.
The debate was closed by Committee Standards chair Chris Bryant who laid out the case against Paterson with a juryturning speech.
He pointed out this had not just been a one-off. There were 14 separate instances of lobbying – a clear pattern of behaviour.
And for that, he had ‘brought this House into disrepute’.
AS Bryant spoke, Paterson gave the faintest shake of the head. By my reckoning, this was the only movement he made during the entire 90 minutes of debate. For the rest of the time he remained as rigid as an Easter Island statue.
Devastating soundbite of the day belonged to Angela Rayner. Standing in for Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs earlier, Labour’s deputy leader said of the Government’s plans: ‘When they break the rules, they remake the rules.’
When it comes to political debate, Calamity Ange can usually be trusted to be pretty much wrong on everything. Yet, for once, this time she was absolutely slap-bang on the money. And on a day of ignominy for the Tories, that may have been the most shaming thing of all.