Penny flicked her blonde mane and flared her nostrils
PENNY Mordaunt is mentioned as a possible leader of the Conservative party. Is she any good? Does she have the spark, the freshness, the courage and parliamentary command, that the next Tory leader will need?
Possibly not. Or at least not yet. This column, as you know, is optimistic, forgiving, benevolent. I’ll never learn.
Miss Mordaunt’s main job is Secretary of State for International Development but she is also in charge, lucky devil, of Women and Equalities. It was on that second area that she yesterday answered questions.
Equalities. The plural says everything about modern politics.
Few Conservative MPs were present. It is both an advantage and disadvantage to Miss Mordaunt that her responsibilities – overseas charity and state egalitarianism – bore the knackers off most Righties.
It is an advantage because she can make a mess of her responsibilities and few Tories will mind or notice. It is a disadvantage because it prevents her making a reputation for herself and building a coterie of admirers who could sweep her towards the leadership.
She entered the House about five minutes early and stood near the Speaker’s Chair, talking to one of her junior ministers, Kelly Tolhurst. Our Kel is one of life’s order takers. From my eyrie I watched the two women having their discussion and there was little doubt who was the natural boss. Miss Mordaunt.
We may tentatively deduce that she has a certain executive presence and that her word is listened to by the non-commissioned officers of this world.
Miss Mordaunt took her place on the Government bench with a flare of her nostrils. She flicked back her blonde mane and squinted imperiously at some paperwork. All these things a Tory activist would monitor with approval.
Politicians benefit from an imposing appearance and Miss Mordaunt scores on that front. That has helped fuel speculation that she could succeed Theresa May. So has her Euroscepticism – she is a proper Brexiteer – and her involvement in the ‘pizza club’ of anti-EU ministers who have occasionally gathered in Andrea Leadsom’s room at Westminster to conspire for a proper Brexit.
Equalities Questions started with discussion of vaccines for the human papillomavirus. Miss Mordaunt treated these with proper gravity. She sounded pretty clued-up.
The next two sets of questions were taken by other ministers, first our Kel, then Victoria Atkins (who was full of self-serving tosh about female firemen, as we are not permitted to call them). Miss Mordaunt returned to the oche for question on ‘flexible working’ from morose Liz McInnes (Lab, Heywood & Middleton). A wet handkerchief made flesh and bone, McInnes. You simply yearn to pour a bottle of malt down her and tell her to take the day off.
MISS Mordaunt was assiduous in her replies, as she ought to have been, but there was little pizzaz about her. She was tidy but mirthless. Dull. Haven’t we had enough dullness recently?
She coughed up numerous cliches – ‘ accessing provision … changing the culture … sharing good practice’. Ugh. On spreading ‘ good practice’, she did that dreary politician thing of saying ‘I absolutely would encourage that’. Zzzzzzz. This is the language of the parrot, the drone, the digester of received thought. The word ‘absolutely’ should be banned at the despatch box. It has lost its purchase.
Miss Mordaunt also spoke repeatedly about ‘hubs’. Ruddy hubs. They have become a terrible blight in politics. She talked of libraries as ‘community hubs’. Aieeeeee. And there was some bilge about housing ‘hubs’, not to mention policy ‘footprints’. By the time she sat down, I’m afraid I had very much gone off the idea of her as Tory leader.
Later, Mrs Leadsom gave the House the business for next week and mentioned, en passant, that Saturday will be national pizza day. She did this, she said, ‘for those who follow closely the activities of regular pizza eaters’.
This mischief – a clear reference to her little supper club of Brexit stalwarts – was done with enchanting innocence. Now there’s a woman to watch.