What a feast for the furious it was.
Diane Abbot stood up every time the PM sat down, but she wasn’t called. Two male leaders spoke up in her stead, to make the patriarchy proud.
“The man bankrolling the prime minister said that the Member for Hackney North should be shot.”
It sounded pretty bad, said like that, in the House of Commons. “Should be shot,” are words that are really better left unsaid. Yes, of course by the man who first used them but equally by anyone else. They are words that excite the excitable, they reinforce dark thoughts in the heads of the suggestible. Said like that, out loud, and with passion, they add to the danger that is being deplored.
On the plus side, Keir was doing better than he has for a long time, the festival spirit was strong in him. “What racist, woman-hating threat of violence would he have to make before the PM plucked up the courage to,” (and here followed something so unthinkable as to make Keir eligible for a prize of some sort) “hand back the “ten million pounds he’s taken from him.”
It would have been the only part of the session that Frank Hester enjoyed.
Rishi was on the spot but had had 48 hours to develop his anti-racist defence. He had discarded the more daring line that the remarks were nothing to do either with race or gender. He moved his ground to “the most diverse government ever,” and his own ethnicity as its leader.
Alas, it went over poorly. The words lacked heart, they lacked humanity. It was committee language, a sociological calculation. And he might have turned the whole thing on its head by following his old school motto – Manners Makyth Man. A gentlemanly apology to Ms Abbot across the despatch box – something heartfelt, genuine, sincere, something that formed a collegiate connection beyond the realm of party, beyond politics – that would have absolutely infuriated everyone on the other side.
In a voice thrilling with significance, Stephen Flynn wondered how the PM could put “money before morals”. Flynn speaks so well it doesn’t matter he hasn’t anything useful to say: he’s like Carla Bruni, whose singing gives us an opportunity to look at her.
Up Diane stood every time Rishi sat down, looking smaller than she used to. None of us are getting any younger, and hate speech isn’t what it was, now that MPs are actually being attacked. Who could want to wish her harm?
What else?
Ed Davey (very unlike Carla Bruni) created an apple pie question out of a children’s cancer hospital. Ruby-red Edward Leigh had Keir nodding along with his question that started, “There is only one party of government that has the will, the inclination, the determination to…” to do anything, really, Keir was thinking. A Tory lady noted that her government was proposing to pay failed asylum seekers to go to Rwanda (what a pull factor!) and that the only way to prevent more of the same was to pull out of the European Court of Human Rights. Rishi wanted to be very clear about that, but wasn’t. Mark Francois felt the hand of history on his shoulder as he warned us of the dangers of appeasement. And Liz Saville Roberts called attention to the National Theatre’s play condemning “austerity” that had slowed the increase in national longevity.
It makes you want to hate actors. They all ought to be shot.
“Tommy Macavoy has gone,” Keir Starmer told us before commencing hostilities. The legendary Labour Whip and master of the art of persuasion. Keir didn’t mention the phrase associated with him: “I will make you want to be dead.” He is greatly missed.
Lee Anderson had left his party, his friends, friendly foes, colleagues and co-conspirators. He removed himself to the remoteness of the furthest opposition backbench below the gangway next to George Galloway. There was an empty space beside him, left perhaps for Andrew Bridgen. Lord, but politics is hard.
