Chairman Saj, the sometime City geezer, bashed Russia
BACK in March, when the skripals were poisoned, sajid Javid was merely in charge of local government. Now he is Home secretary. Was that a small judder of satisfaction as, opening a Commons statement about the latest rum doings in Wiltshire, he said he had just chaired a meeting of Cobra, the Government’s emergency response committee?
Red telephones. Maps on the wall. senior intelligence officers. And at the centre of it all Chairman saj, the sometime City trading-floor geezer so catapulted into the big league after Amber Rudd’s departure that some say he could succeed Theresa May as Conservative party leader.
I wouldn’t put more than a couple of quid on that.
It was a pity for Mr Javid that the House was not more full. Thursday lunch is not primetime in the Chamber. still, that gave him a chance to practise his ‘statesman’ timbre.
salisbury residents should not be unsettled by the latest double-poisoning. The Chief Medical Officer was not changing her advice.
Beside Mr Javid sat salisbury’s MP, John Glen, unable to speak from the backbenches because he is a minister.
On Mr Javid’s other side was Environment secretary Michael Gove, frowning and dropping chin to chest and rumbling hear-hears. Mr Gove is good at that sort of thing. Mr Javid has some way to go before he is in Gove’s league for claretyvoiced bottom.
Why was the Gover there? Gossips would note that he is said to be a rival of Mr Javid for the Tory leadership.
Mr Javid bashed Russia. ‘We can anticipate further disinformation from the Kremlin,’ he yacked in his sharp-edged voice – a voice that calls Wiltshire ‘Wilsher’. The Russians should ‘come forward and explain exactly what has gone on’, he cried.
Diane Abbott, for Labour, had the joyless task of agreeing with the Government. Fumbling for a soundbite that might get her on the news bulletins, Miss Abbott said we could not allow the streets and parks of provincial England ‘to become killing fields for state actors’. A little de trop?
MPS leapt on the theory that ‘ our quarrel is with the Russian state and not the Russian people’. Russians, said Mr Javid, had been ‘very nice’ to England football fans attending the World Cup. Is ‘nice’ a word Home secretaries should use at moments of possible national peril? He stumbled over several phrases. In short, he is not yet polished. He does not have the larynx or control of tempo to convey sang-froid with cold intent.
Pat McFadden (Lab, Wolverhampton sE), who sees everything through a pro-EU lens, said it would be harder to secure international solidarity against Moscow because ‘the forces of nationalism are on the rise’. He may have been taking a dig at the Italians.
Mike Gapes (Lab, Ilford s) wanted a boycott of RT, an English-language TV channel which is close to the Kremlin. Mr Javid said voters would recoil from any MP supporting Putin. Conversely, Vicky Ford (Con, Chelmsford) spoke of the BBC World service increasing its own broadcasts in the Balkans and along the Russian frontier areas.
In other news, speaker Bercow was wearing two badges. I could not read the smaller one but the bigger was one of those ‘NHs’ jobs many Tory MPs were wearing on Wednesday. Is it wise for a speaker to wear badges? Is he not in danger (again) of projecting his personal views on a supposedly dispassionate Chair?
Talking of partisanship, Work and Pensions secretary Esther McVey was shot at repeatedly by Labour over some Universal Credit tangle she has had with the Auditor General, sir Amyas Morse.
The row was accentuated by Frank Field (Birkenhead), who is trying to win back favour with his Labour colleagues after his support for Brexit.
Miss McVey held her fort with ease. sir Amyas, who is acquiring a record of distinctly political interventions, may find he has chosen the wrong target.