Suddenly, it’s not circus and ringmaster but chair-poking lion tamer and circling lions.
For years, John Bercow has been Labour’s Speaker. They have colluded. They meet and plot. They brief mutually.
On Monday night, Bercow was pursuing an obscure and insignificant change to standing orders and he was abandoned by the Labour Whips. Their front bench opposed him. The Motion failed and he was humiliated in the House.
The deeply unpleasant Radio 5 presenter Sam Walker got her knickers in a right twist earlier when Tim Montgomerie of the Times was on her show. Reading out left-wing hackette Samira Shackle’s Twitter handle, so listeners could find her online, gobby Walker point blank refused to do the same for Monty:
“Now if you’d like to follow Samira on Twitter she is @samirashackle. If you want to follow Tim then bad news because yesterday he retweeted someone slagging off the BBC so I’m not going to tell you his address. But now is not the time to refuse to give out Tim Montgomerie’s Twitter address although I am not going to give out Tim Montgomerie’s Twitter address for now is the time to open your ears, put up your feet settle back, as we Chart The Week.”
Here is the offending Tweet that Tim had dared to push:
BBC obsessing about cuts again. £1bn a year 'eye-watering' apparently. That's £1bn out of nearly £800bn. Or a rounding error, if you like.
— Tim Shipman (@ShippersUnbound) December 4, 2013
The former editor of ConHome told listeners: “I can’t remember Sam retweeting someone who was rude about the BBC.” The delightful Walker hit back “Well you better look back through your timeline Tim,” giving Monty the final word “I better hadn’t I. I didn’t know we were being censored, weren’t allowed free speech but I will behave much better from now on.”
The paranoia is getting to them.
Don’t let’s forget the way Ed Miliband was looking up at his bellowing shadow chancellor.
The look started out supportive and attentive, then went objective and cool, and then passed into dreaminess. Procedural analysts agree he was choosing the exact spot, between which two hairs, the ice pick would sink most easily into.
Balls is a phenomenon. Everything he has predicted has turned out to be wrong. He is like the 364 economists who wrote to the Times in 1981 warning that austerity would cripple the economy. They were wrong. He followed their lead. And now he’s wrong.
He stood up into the famous wall of noise that 200 Tories can produce, and he roared that the chancellor was “in denial”.
That was the beginning. But in another sense it was also the end.
The Work and Pensions secretary’s reaction to Balls’ “IDS – In Deep Shambles” line today.
