Mild-mannered no more, The Saj is now a mouthy bad cop. Mr No-Nonsense
BACK when Spitting Image was in its pomp the best laughs were provided by Norman Tebbit, who was portrayed as Maggie Thatcher’s hired goon.
He was a snarling, mildly sadistic figure who wore bikers’ leathers and wielded a policeman’s cosh for cracking Cabinet skulls.
Since moving to the Home Office last year, Sajid Javid has slotted neatly into this richly comic role with aplomb.
On immigration and counterterrorism ‘The Saj’, once a mildmannered, wouldn’t-say-boo-toagoose figure, is now the Government’s mouthy bad cop. The Prime Minister’s Mr No-Nonsense.
He was up before the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee yesterday. Top of the agenda: Shamima Begum, the British teenager- turned- IS bride whose citizenship the Saj has snatched away since she asked to return from Syria.
‘Emotive’ is not a word I would use to describe his performance. Chairman of the committee, drippy Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) repeatedly raised the issue of Miss Begum’s week-old child.
Immigrant’s son Mr Javid – a self-made chap who trousered squillions as a City trader – is clearly a man who is sure in his own views. Nor was he afraid to express them bluntly. Throughout his grilling, he was adamant. Unrepentant Miss Begum remains a threat to the homeland, nipper or no nipper.
Would Saj’s predecessor, wealthy stockbroker’s daughter and Cheltenham Ladies’ College alumna Amber Rudd, have been able to adopt such a dogged position in the circumstances? Discuss, as they say in academe.
Labour’s Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) asked whether it was ‘morally right to export the problem’, rather than deal with Miss Begum’s case through UK courts.
MR Javid insisted his priority was to protect the UK. Asked again if he thought this was morally suspect, he added: ‘I’m afraid I just don’t see it like that.’ Bet there were some outraged squeals in Islington’s fuchsiascented salons at that one.
Conservative Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham), an ex-lawyer since you ask, wondered about exhome secretary Ken Clarke’s criticism of the decision to deny Miss Begum a return to the UK.
Mr Javid pointed out that Mr Clarke was last in the Home Office during the Eighties. (Point of order: It was actually the Nineties.) The world, he reasoned, is a rather different place since 9/11, adding: ‘When The Right Hon Member for Rushcliffe speaks it is important everyone listen but that doesn’t mean he’s right every time he speaks.’ Google translate: Back in your box, Ken!
Mr Javid maintained a detached expression throughout. Cold. Like iced steel. But might voters warm to him in a leadership contest?
His appearance preceded a rather tame PMQs. We were spared the usual Brexit table tennis between the two frontbenches though, thank goodness. Instead, the leader of the Opposition focused on the economy. He claims Britain’s finances to be in tatters. In his vision, families are crowding round lightbulbs for warmth. Children are dressing in onion sacks.
Au contraire, says the Prime Minister. She sees nothing but prosperity. Bottles of Chateau d’Yquem on kitchen tables. A sparkling Lamborghini parked in every driveway.
Both were spouting hyperbolic nonsense, of course.
Peter Bone (Wellingborough), a Conservative Eurosceptic who won’t have been pleased by Mrs May’s announcement on Tuesday of a vote to delay Brexit, provided the biggest chuckle.
He complained that news of the vote from her Cabinet meeting had leaked to the Press before the Prime Minister had informed the Commons. Surely the solution, he said, was to televise Cabinet meetings.
Needless to say he was joking. Far too much politics on the telly as it is. Then again, the opportunity to watch a bitter, divided Cabinet, tired of their increasingly isolated boss, openly knifing each other across the Cabinet table?
Actually, that might be worth tuning in for.