At last, they’ve realised voters have REAL issues to worry about
Stop the presses! Yesterday, somehow, we managed to get through an entire PMQS without so much as a mention of partygate. Yup, you read that correctly. A whole blissful 40 minutes in the Commons devoid of citrus-sucking outrage about cheap birthday cake and plastic cups of tesco’s finest Chateau Mouthwash.
the Greens’ Caroline Lucas made a brief sally about the Government’s habit for breaking the law, but otherwise we heard not a sausage. Nada. Zero, zip, zilch.
the local elections are upon us and the message may finally have slotted home with opposition Mps that there are more pressing issues facing voters than events that took place several moons ago. Namely the cost of living crisis.
outspoken Labour housing spokesman Lisa Nandy apparently dared to say as much during a Shadow Cabinet meeting last week. poor Nandy. Siberia’s salt mines beckon!
predictably, Sir Keir Starmer went in on the Angela Rayner business. He trotted out a prepared line on how he knew the PM had ‘whipped his backbenchers to scream and shout’ at him as he started speaking. Given that he was heard in near silence, it rather backfired.
Mrs Rayner sat beside Sir Keir in all black, her mood uncharacteristically subdued. Hopefully this is just a temporary measure. She’s a rare livewire in Labour’s joyless ranks.
As for the Government’s front bench, it was looking decidedly lightweight. No Rishi, no Liz truss, no priti patel. At first I thought Sajid Javid was washing his hair until I spotted him hiding behind the Speaker’s chair.
Considering the Rayner hoo-ha, Boris was short on women too. Surrounding him were the heaving hams of Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi and Leader of the House Mark Spencer, neither of whom are exactly Mumsnet material.
It’s a point Starmer would have done well to make. Except he’s about as nimble on his feet as Giant Haystacks would have been in a pair of concrete clogs.
Starmer and Boris proceeded to go back and forth on the economy. Sir Keir accused the PM of being the ‘Comical Ali of the cost of living crisis’ – and compared him to an ostrich who was ‘perfectly happy keeping his head in the sand’.
He also attacked the proposal to scrap annual Mots, which he compared to John Major’s much-mocked traffic cones hotline. Speaking of Sir John, the former PM’S ex-paramour Edwina Currie was among the visitors in the Stranger’s Gallery.
the one-time health minister was having a whale of a time, flinging her head back with laughter whenever Boris found himself in schtuck.
the PM got in some early local election campaigning by declaring most Labour councils ‘bankrupt’. He made mocking reference to Sir Keir’s local council of ‘Islington or Camden, or somewhere like that’. He’s very down on north London, Boris. Even though he used to call it home.
AS usual, he saved his best moment for the end when Sir Keir couldn’t respond. He described Starmer as a ‘guy doomed to be a permanent spectator’. the tory benches roared their approval. Chief whip Chris Heaton-Harris gave a Gollum-like rub of the hands.
the remark hit home because it played on Labour’s insecurities. there is a lingering sense that behind all the halo-polishing, Sir Keir is destined to be one of politics’ runners-up. An also-ran. And it’s an image that can be hard to shake. Just ask Gordon Brown.
there was little else to report other than towards the end, Ben Everitt (Con, Milton Keynes N) made mention of the fact that Moscow had just announced 287 British Mps were now banned from entering Russia. their alleged crime? ‘Whipping up of Russophobic hysteria’ amid the war in Ukraine. Among those sanctioned were clueless vaccines minister Maggie throup and Lichfield’s ludicrously maned pin-up Michael Fabricant. Blimey! No wonder the Kremlin crockery was rattling...