Patel trifles with her opposition as she channels the Grocer’s Daughter

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Both were visible in Westminster on a sweltering Wednesday – Parliament Square had been neatly partitioned between Steve Bray and his Stop Brexit brigade (who were singing karaoke), the Free-julian-assange people, some ultra-orthodox Jews protesting about schools and a rag-tag group of activists with “fund the NHS” badges.

Inside the Commons, the atmosphere was fetid. MPS steamed like passengers on a long-haul trip to Rwanda – though this one was running low on gin and tonics, the air-con had failed and they were all out of nuts (or perhaps they were all outside). A few backbenchers fanned themselves vainly with their order papers.

Given yesterday’s dramatic events – those flights that never were – you might have expected the Home Secretary to give off a “morning-afterthe-night-before” vibe. Not a bit of it. Priti Patel had gone for power dressing with a difference – vintage Thatcher couture. In a two-piece houndstooth suit and spiky black stilettos, eyebrows somehow even sharper than usual, she looked ready to clobber the opposition with her metaphorical handbag.

Patel name-checked various baddies she blamed for the situation – lawyers (“the usual suspects – with the blessings of Honourable and Right Honourable members opposite”), “Evil peoplesmuggling gangs”, “the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg” (she spat out these words contemptuously) and “mob rule coming up to thwart our charter flights”.

“Mobs. Madame Deputy Speaker,” she added menacingly.

If the Home Secretary was channelling the Grocer’s Daughter, her opposite number Yvette Cooper had the vibe of a harassed librarian’s assistant, furious about a late-returned book. “This is a shambles and it is shameful,” she lamented, before launching into a five-minute laundry list of everything that had gone wrong.

Eventually, the Tory MPS began to grumble. “All criticisms and no answers,” yelled one. “What’s your plan?” asked Home Office minister Guy Opperman again and again.

“A security partnership!” chirruped shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock. Labour’s plan, such that it was, seemed to be not doing whatever the Tories were doing. It also seemed to hinge on the French being reasonable and playing ball. (If booting everyone off to Rwanda seemed hare-brained, it was nothing compared to this.)

Winding up Yvette Cooper is never a tricky business, especially for Priti Patel, but yesterday’s efforts exceeded even her usual high-water mark of trolling. Responding to Cooper’s squawked objections, she addressed her in tones of mandarin sweetness. “On a point of education, if I may, for the Honourable Lady,” she smirked, causing Cooper to grimace.

Patel had more tricks up her sleeve, implying that the plan’s critics must be bigoted towards Rwanda as a country. This drew a massive cheer from Patel’s backbenchers. “Yeheeeeh!” came the roar from the Rwandan tourism board.

The Labour faithful proved rather less helpful to Cooper. The four horsemen of the Labour electoral apocalypse were there – Corbyn, Mcdonnell, Burgon and Sultana. Whether for Covid or nominative determinism reasons, Rachael Maskell had turned up in an ostentatious face-covering. Stella Creasy mounted a vociferous defence of the esteemed legal professionals of the ECHR. Won’t somebody please think of the lawyers?

In her final summing up, Cooper appealed to “decency and common sense”. “Our country is better than this,” she glowered, looking as if she’d swallowed a wasp. Outside, Steve Bray and his merry band of maniacs did their very best to prove her wrong.

‘If booting everyone off to Rwanda seemed hare-brained, it was nothing compared to this’