Theresa finds her voice again … but not enough to chide a late present Foreign Secretary

THINGS are looking up. Yesterday, as she faced MPS for the first time since that miserable speech, Theresa May did not cough once. Nor did she lose her voice. Nor, for that matter, did a TV comedian saunter past security and wave a P45 in her face.

In many ways, in fact, all went well. Mrs May did not knock her jug of water on to the Transport Secretary’s lap. The dispatch box did not slide from the table and land on her foot. She was not knocked unconscious by a microphone falling from the Commons ceiling. The lights did not go out, the walls did not collapse, and the Palace of Westminster did not creak, groan, tip sideways, and then collapse into the Thames. To that modest degree, at any rate, the Prime Minister’s luck is improving.

She’d come to the House to tell MPS that the Government was “preparing for all eventualities” on Brexit: in other words, that the UK might still leave the EU with no deal. As she began her statement, however, Labour backbenchers noticed that someone was missing.

“Where’s Boris?” they shouted with glee, hoping that either Mrs May had sacked Mr Johnson, or that Mr Johnson was snubbing Mrs May. To their disappointment, it turned out that the Foreign Secretary was merely late: he wriggled into the chamber a good 30 seconds after the Prime Minister had started, turfed a junior minister from the front bench, plumped himself down in her place, and assumed an air of deep and profound interest, as if he’d been sitting there listening all along.

He’ll never change, you know. Not even when he’s prime minister. He’ll still be sneaking in at the back, long after he was meant to be there, like a schoolboy late for chapel.

“Psst! I say, Bercow old chap! Why’s it so dashed quiet in here? Who’s meant to be speaking?”

“You.”

Whether out of respect or pity, Labour MPS barely heckled Mrs May. One or two coughed, but not, as far as I could tell, in mockery. Her voice seemed to be back to normal, and was still holding up after over an hour of taking questions. Whatever bug she had in Manchester last week, she seems to have passed it to Anna Soubry.

“Forgive my throat, Mr Speaker!” rasped the Tory MP for Broxtowe. “Women with bad throats won’t be silenced!”

Mrs May gave a slightly wan-looking smile.

On the whole, MPS seemed more interested in attacking Mr Johnson

than Mrs May. Jeremy Corbyn called for him to be sacked, as did Tom Brake of the Lib Dems. Both times, Mr Johnson simply laughed.

He did not appear quite so amused, however, when veteran Tory Europhile Ken Clarke pointedly referred to him as “the present Foreign Secretary” – as though Mr Johnson might lose his position at any moment, even as they were speaking.

Mr Johnson sighed, looked away, and shook his head.

‘He wriggled into the chamber a good 30 seconds after the Prime Minister had started’