Boris got away without a scrape on his bodywork
FOREIGN Secretary Boris Johnson, back home barely long enough to change his smalls, was on the front bench to hear the day’s opening announcement by Speaker Bercow. Rather a historic one it proved.
‘I have to neau-tify,’ began Bercow (that Clouseau dipthong is how he speaks), ‘the House in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967 that Her Majesty has signified her Royal assent to the following Acts.’
At this he looked high from side to side, perhaps scanning the horizon for impis. Satisfied he was not about to come under spear attack, he proceeded to list the two Acts: ‘Nuclear Safeguards make decisions). Eight hundred! Act 2018; European Withdrawal The Euro-lawyers tied plenty of Act 2018.’ A moment, indeed! knots, didn’t they?
This was parliamentary confirmation Slowly those knots are being that the Act replacing Ted unpicked. Slowly, and despite the Heath’s 1972 European legislation current fever of choreographed – a repeal resisted so long by the protests from multi-national business likes of Dominic Grieve, Hilary which can be filed under L for Benn and Viscount Hailsham – lobbying, we are being liberated. was now pumping. Establishment Remainer ab-dabs
A cheer rose from Eurosceptic in recent days have taken the form Tories. Steve Baker, one of the of proxy attacks on Boris for missing Brexit Department ministers, was the Heathrow airport vote on thumped on the back by a congratulatory Monday night. frontbench colleague, It was widely expected that Mims Davies. Anti-Brexit Speaker further such criticisms would Bercow managed somehow not to dominate yesterday’s Foreign make a snide remark. Office Questions. They did not
Within an hour or so the Government materialise. His Heathrow absence was pushing out propaganda was barely mentioned. with uplifting music to celebrate The House attacked him over the Act’s birth. Brexit Secretary Donald Trump’s forthcoming visit. David Davis greenlighted the start It quizzed him about post-Brexit of parliamentary moves to pass trade deals, post-Brexit economic 800 pieces of secondary legislation fortunes and about English football (ie giving agencies further down fans thinking of going to Russia the food- chain legal rights to for the final stages of the World Cup. He was even asked by the Lib Dems’ Jamie Stone (Caithness) what he was doing to protect the future of the Scottish wildcat. With a measure of comradeship for feral, furry creatures, Boris replied that he intended to ‘stick up for wildcats wherever I can’.
BuTHeathrow? It scarcely blipped on to the radar. Perhaps everyone thought everyone else was going to mention it, so did not bother to do so. Most peculiar. Result: a relieved Boris, who got away without a scrape on his bodywork.
A session that could have been tricky for him proved unexpectedly free of turbulence. It helped that anti-Brexit Tories such as Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) and Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) did not attend. Both have pushed their hatred of Boris a long way in recent days, to the point that they have sounded acidic.
If Boris looked a bit crumpled on the front bench, this was understandable. He was just off the aeroplane from Afghanistan, where he had been on Monday.
Soon after the end of yesterday’s Questions he travelled to The Hague. Today it will be Copenhagen. Tomorrow Lithuania. A pooping schedule. But he is holding up better than many predicted he would and his parliamentary delivery has improved, becoming less staccato, less frivolous.
The Establishment puts it about that he is a disaster as Foreign Secretary. Rot. He is engaging, good with foreign leaders’ names, and in Sir Alan Duncan and Alistair Burt he has experienced sidekicks. He may not have the ethical hygiene of Robin Cook or the suaveness of a Jack Straw/Douglas Hurd/Peter Carrington but compared to recent predecessors he is more electrifying than Philip Hammond or William Hague, bolder than David Miliband, longer-lasting than Margaret Beckett, John Major, Francis Pym and Anthony Crosland, less lawyerly than Malcolm Rifkind, more likeable than Geoffrey Howe and less elaborately combed than David Owen.