Stupidest week ever

IS THIS MP A LIAR OR MESSIAH? Commons too busy bickering to run country BRING YOUR GAUKE TO THE SLAUGHTER

WELL, there must have been stranger weeks in Westminster but no one round here can remember one.

There was an odd feel from Monday, that air of things wrapping up.

The description that this place is full of people behaving like schoolkids is never more accurate than when they’re about to go on holiday.

You can almost see them all relax. It’s like the last day of term at primary school, when lessons were cancelled and you could bring in games.

There was a lot going on.

But what overshadowed it all was a camera picking up Jeremy Corbyn mouthing something that could have been “stupid woman” or “stupid people” or “I hate tinsel”.

Some people think he did insult the PM. Others don’t. He said he didn’t.

Mumblegate

The scenes it precipitated were extraordinary in the extreme.

Tories up and baying for blood. Then using whatever perceived injustice they felt as a way to attack the Speaker.

One backbencher told me, after he had calmed down a bit: “It was the perfect storm. A chance to get at Corbyn, then Bercow, then bugger off on holiday. What did you expect?”

This is where we are at the moment, living through the Politics of Distraction.

If we weren’t in such an era, the real story about Prime Minister’s Questions would be Mr Corbyn tying the PM in knots over Brexit.

Instead TV stations hired lip readers, national newspapers had Mumblegate on the front, and it took up far more political oxygen than anything else. LABOUR’S Fiona Onasanya was found guilty of perverting the course of justice by lying about who was behind the wheel of a speeding car.

The Peterborough MP, 35, was convicted at an Old Bailey retrial – which should bring a headache of a by-election, as There’s another good example of this lack of perspective. Amber Rudd. Brought back into the Cabinet as Work and Pensions Minister.

It couldn’t have come at a more crucial time. We are witnessing the devastating effects of Universal Credit all over the country.

This week there were stories about an expecting couple living on £4 a day.

And a 26-year-old woman with MS so severe she can’t feed herself, having her benefits cut in half.

Or the mum whose benefit changes mean she can’t afford toys for her little ones. Or food. Oh, and another mum

FINALLY, finally, one person has backed Theresa esa May’s hated Brexit deal.

Problem being, it was Vladimir Putin.

Nothing like the backing of a man with no respect for Britain, who deploys chemical weapons on our soil to kill his opponents, and all the rest of it. t. It’s the clearest sign yet – if any was needed – that Mrs May’s deal is dead. her majority is only about 600. Labour reckon she should resign. She doesn’t.

In fact, get this. She says: “I am in good Biblical company along with Joseph, Moses, Daniel and his three Hebrew friends who were each found guilty by the courts of their in Hull had to tell her kids the truth about Santa because she couldn’t afford presents.

Meanwhile, Amber gives it the briefest of mentions, before taking to the airwaves with what’s really on her mind: Brexit.

When MPS come back after their well-earned 17 days off it would be nice to see them concentrate.

There is a lot going on outside of Brexit.

A homeless man died, sleeping rough in the Tube station, which MPS – and the rest of us who work here – use every day. There are flowers there and some day...of course this is equally true of Christ who was accused and convicted by the courts of his day.”

R.E. lessons were a long time ago but I’m pretty sure our Saviour was never clocked doing 41mph in a 30mph. And he never drove a Micra. cards and candles, and that is sweet. But I can’t help feeling it would have been much nicer and more useful if someone passing – and I include myself in this – could have helped when he was, you know, alive.

And this was the week we learned that deaths of homeless people have risen by 24 per cent.

Anyway, this is the festive season. And I apologise for leaving you on a down note, but there is a shortage of cracker jokes in these parts.

Wherever you are spending it, have a good Christmas. I hope it passes happily and peacefully. JUSTICE Secretary David Gauke upset fairytale fans this week by reportedly declaring that a so-called “managed no-deal” Brexit was “a unicorn that needs to be slaughtered”.

“Don’t threaten unicorns, Dave,” went the cry. One colleague made the point by getting Mr Gauke a secret Santa gift of a toy unicorn.

A Tory with a sense of humour. Two mythical beasts in one story.