Mood here in the Hot House is one of frog-eyed frenzy
PARLIAMENT yesterday? Bizarre. A House of Lords minister did a Capt Oates and resigned at the despatch box for some small oversight.
In the Commons, Tory Remainer Anna Soubry gave an explosive speech – that is, she was the one who exploded, ranting against Brexit and mocking the ‘mental health’ of pro-Leave Tories.
In a select committee, BBC journalist Carrie Gracie wobbled close to tears as she complained that she was not paid the £250,000 a year one of her male colleagues received. And at Prime Minister’s Questions, Emily Thornberry accused Conservatives of being ‘cavemen’ for not letting 16-yearolds have the vote.
To top a mature day, Speaker Bercow screamed at an unnamed (imagined?) Tory heckler for being ‘noisy, boorish and rather stupid’.
Britons, behold your elite. While you potter about your lives, placidly contemplating the next chocolate biscuit, your rulers behave like over-galvanised gerbils. The mood here in the Hot House is one of hyperbole, frog-eyed frenzy, vehemence with jolly cross knobs on.
Let us start with that dramatic resignation in the Lords. A Japanese moment. Lord Bates, International Aid Minister and most decent of eggs, had inadvertently failed to turn up in time to answer a question from Labour’s Lady Lister.
A short while later Lord Bates presented himself, said he was ‘thoroughly ashamed’ and would therefore be offering his resignation at once.
‘No!’ cried the House, as a plainly upset Lord Bates, there and then, walked from the chamber, past the flailing arms of a colleague who tried in vain to stop him. The much-liked Bates attracted widespread sympathy – so much so that, to add to the mood of madness, he was later persuaded to return to his post – but that was possibly not so true for Miss Soubry, whose eruption in the Commons came during a debate on Brexit.
AS you may have heard, la Soubry is a Remainer. Boy, did she go off on one. Conceding that she was ‘agitated’, she accused the Government of succumbing to ‘madness’ in its Brexit negotiations and claimed that pro-Brexit Tories ‘will not hesitate to destroy the party’. Speaking in capital letters, she cried: ‘THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO WAKE UP TO THIS!!!’
In Parliament it is often the case that politicians accuse their enemies of their own failings. At the culture select committee, the BBC’s former China editor, Miss Gracie, spoke for some two hours – about herself.
She did so with the fluency you would expect of a rolling-news veteran. The committee had a job to interrupt her. The bit I liked was when she compared BBC director-general Lord Hall to an old Chinese emperor. The Exalted One (Hall) and some of his BBC top brass were later hauled in front of the committee to explain themselves, which they did in seamless bureaucratese. Miss Gracie sat behind them while they spoke. She didnae look chuffed.
And then we had Miss Thornberry, who stood in for Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs, Mrs May being absent in Beijing. Jowls quivering like port jelly, she demanded to know why 16-year-olds were not permitted the vote. David Lidington, for the Government, simply noted that Miss Thornberry did not approve of 16-year-olds buying cigarettes, knives, fireworks or even using a sunbed. That threw her. She started spluttering like my 1930 Morris.
She called the Tories ‘cavemen’. ‘Sexist!’ they cried. Mr Lidington told her to ‘grow up’. Labour MPs: ‘Sexist!’
Westminster is behaving like Chief Inspector Dreyfus from the Clouseau films. I blame Brexit. The prospect of life without their beloved EU has been too much for our liberal Establishment. With a loop-the-loop and the whizzzz of Mr McHenry’s scooter zooming away in the old Magic Roundabout programmes, our elite has shot off into distant orbit.