The ponytailed MP was sweating like a part-cooked onion
COLOUR Sergeant Bourne at Rorke’s Drift squinted at the sun-baked ridge and huskily exclaimed, ‘Zulus, sir, thousands of ’em.’ There were not quite that many Scots Nat MPs outside the St Stephen’s Gate of Parliament yesterday afternoon – 56, to be precise – but they certainly gave the photographers a challenge.
The snappers jostled on their monkey ladders and bawled, ‘go back! go back!’ They did not mean ‘go back to Scotland’ – I think – but ‘move back a few yards so we can get you all in one frame’.
‘This way, darlin’,’ they screamed at SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, she almost orange with make-up. Up close there is something of the Thunderbirds puppet about her.
But what was she doing at the Commons? She’s not an MP, after all. Her predecessor Alex Salmond, now MP for Gordon, was in the middle of the melee, his squeezy fingers placed on two female SNPers.
One of them had aubergine-coloured hair. One of the SNP men, meanwhile, had a magnificent ponytail. Name of Chris Law (Dundee West), he was in a three-piece tweed suit and sweating like a part-cooked onion. He may learn that a tropical suit is more useful for London in summer.
It was not quite first day back at school, for the Commons Chamber was not open. Yet there was a sense of start-of-voyage, the fresh- elected House descending on Westminster to collect security passes and (in the case of new MPs) be given initial induction courses – where the lavs are, etc.
The SNP have colonised the Lib Dem leadership’s spacious offices. ‘We have served them their eviction notices,’ said Pete Wishart (Perth).
THE day’s first excitements had been in Downing Street, where David Cameron was tweaking his Cabinet. At 9.20am we heard the clack-clack-clack gait of the Leader of the Lords, Lady Stowell, aka Tina the Typist.
She is staying in position – paid, this time – and gave a thumbs-up as she was driven away in a Toyota Avensis.
A burly figure with bicycle plus helmet lolloped across Whitehall at 9.47. Boris! Morning, old horse.
What job will you be given? Boris made ab-dab-dab noises and when he emerged at 10.05 he said ‘I’ve got a tremendous job – Mayor of London’. In fact he is going to attend political cabinets, which is about as little as the PM could give him. Amber Rudd arrived, walking ponderously to her fate: energy and Climate Change Secretary.
Is Miss Rudd green? No, she’s amber! Sir Alan Duncan, ex-international aid minister, sashayed past, face creasing, creamy with gossip. Sir Alan was heading in the wrong direction, alas.
No job for me, noooo, he laughed, and twinkled off to work.
excellent Robert Halfon, new deputy chairman of the Tory party, turned up in his own car, a blue Kia.
The rozzers on the gates, better accustomed to Jaguars, did their best not to look sniffy. Miss Rudd left No. 10 and bow-legged towards the gates, John Wayne after a day in the saddle. She forswore a limo. Ghastly job in some ways, Climate Change. You have to walk everywhere.
Shortly before 11am Mr Cameron zoomed off to the Commons in a motorcade, engines gunning. The Tory backbenchers’ 1922 Committee was meeting. Committee room 14 was so packed there was no room for John Hayes.
Mr Cameron gave a vast hug to Kelly Tolhurst, who toppled Ukip’s Mark Reckless in Rochester.
He called Mr Reckless a fat bottom, or something like that, and the massed Tory MPs cheered.
They thumped their desks, drummed feet on the floor. Boris told us the mood inside was ‘orgiastic’.
In the corridor, a newshound asked the PM about the opinion polls, which got the election so wrong. A happy Cameron said: ‘I’m going to sue YouGov for my ulcers.’
And a pink-faced Sir Nicholas Soames, overheating like a Ford Zephyr climbing Hellfire Pass, said, though we were still half an hour from the noonday gun: ‘I’m off for a cocktail.’