‘MPs are complaining, m’lud. Lammy has gone supersonic-pompous’
ON the Italian island of Capri yesterday, some point between the Campari and the antipasti, we can imagine a white-gloved waiter shimmering up to a peachy-cheeked Etonian with sunglasses and open-necked Jermyn Street shirt.
‘ Hai un messaggio, mio Signore.’ ‘Thank you, Luigi.’ The Englishman glanced at the message.
It was from his gentleman’s-gentleman in London. ‘They’re talking about you in the Commons, m’lud, and they’re seething. Chope’s glasses have steamed up. Lammy has gone supersonic-pompous. And there is nothing more they can do. All very satisfactory. Mitchell.’
Lord Cameron, Foreign Secretary, was in Italy for a G7 foreign ministers’ meeting. These meetings have to be held in sun-kissed resorts. It’s a security requirement. Back in the House of Commons, MPs were complaining that the government had deadbatted a suggestion from the procedure committee.
Its not entirely cerebral supremo Dame Karen Bradley (Con, Staffordshire Moorlands) had proposed that parliamentary convention be bent to allow his lordship to be quizzed at the bar of the Commons. The Government’s response, not quite in full: ‘ You must be joking. Get stuffed.’
‘The bar of the Commons’ is nothing to do with sherbets. It is the part of the chamber next to the Serjeant at Arms’s seat. Although it is not officially part of the chamber, someone could stand there and still be questioned, or reprimanded, by MPs.
HISTORICALLY the Commons has been jealous of its privileges. After all, we want the people contributing to its debates to have been elected. But when the unelected David Cameron was made foreign secretary, and immediately became a peer so that he would at least be in parliament, there was agitation that he would not face questions in the Commons.
The House of Lords can scrutinise him but that is like watching goldfish chewing a Murray Mint. The old fools don’t leave much of a dent.
Dame Karen led a short Commons debate on the parliamentary report in which her committee made its ‘bar of the house’ suggestion. It was ‘regrettable’ and ‘most disappointing’ that the government had given it the bum’s rush.
Patrick Grady (SNP, Glasgow North) called the rejection ‘predictable’. He was right. In Gordon Brown’s government both Peter Mandelson and Andrew Adonis ran spending departments from the Lords. Whitehall was always likely to follow that precedent and refuse to let Lord Cameron be inconvenienced by questions from MPs.
Sir Christopher Chope (Con, Christchurch) felt Dame Karen was too ‘mild-mannered’ in her language. MPs felt ‘strong anger’.
Dame Karen was upset the Government had been slow to respond. This made it difficult for her to assemble enough colleagues for a meeting to be quorate. Pretty feeble. They were prepared to bend the rules to make Cameron answer questions but not prepared to eat into their parliamentary holidays for a Zoom meeting?
Richard Foord (Lib Dem, Tiverton), sometimes a strange goose, made the reasonable point that Lord Carrington quit in 1982 after the Falklands invasion because some MPs had predicted it while he, a foreign secretary in the Lords, ignored them.
David Lammy, shadow foreign secretary, waxed indignant about how ‘ the seriousness of this cannot be understated’. He possibly meant ‘overstated’. Mr Lammy also had a dig at Lord Curzon. His lordship died in 1925. Mr Lammy seems to be the sort to kick a man when he is down.
Sir Roger Gale, Deputy Speaker, was asked to do something about Lord Cameron’s elusiveness. Sir Roger said there was naught he could do.
In the absence of Dave the scarlet-faced pimpernel, the Commons must make do with Andrew Mitchell (Con, Sutton Coldfield), the gentleman’s-gentleman or, as he is now also known, Deputy Foreign Secretary. He did not attend Dame Karen’s debate, being busy ironing his master’s copy of the Tangier Gazette.
Kevan Jones (Lab, North Durham) asked if Mr Mitchell would be sufficiently informed to answer questions about MI6. That would entail getting Mr Mitchell’s hairsprayed fringe past the Geiger counters at intelligence HQ and therefore seems unlikely.