The first laugh line in an amiable PMQs came as soon as Labour’s indomitable deputy stood up. Explaining why she was at the despatch box, Angela Rayner slipped a sly, almost imperceptible shiv between her leader’s ribs saying he was in Samoa, looking for ideas about economic growth.
There are many reasons to visit the far-flung tropical paradise but “ideas for economic growth” is not one of them.
Having said that, their ancestral traditions of headhunting, spear-fighting and feasting on the organs of enemies will serve us all well when Labour’s net zero requirements meet their industrial strategy – but that’s for another time.
Questioners asked Angela about her signature dishes – Renters Reform and Day One Rights – and her answers provoked short, dense shouts of approval from behind her. For all her policies’ morbid effects on the economy and society, on renters and workers, on jobs and health and workplace relations and prosperity – she brings joy to Labour hearts. She is Labour’s throbbing socialist soul and her party loves her for it.
What was Keir thinking, giving her his slot to go to Samoa? Free trip, of course, first class cabin, nice hotel, nodding palms. But the more his party sees of his deputy the more they yearn towards her. She is why they joined Labour. To champion the vulnerable, bring comfort to the weary, minister to the dying, forgive us our sins, make the world a better place.
That it means feasting on the organs of the working class by taking their jobs, bankrupting their companies and closing their factories need not be faced.
Thus, Angela was able to answer Oliver Dowden’s unanswerable question with insuperable ideological confidence. He asked, “What is her definition of working people?” and she cried, “All those people let down by 14 years of Tory failure!”
It’s not the OED definition but it worked in the space.
Dowden asked if she agreed with the IFS who said that working people would suffer from an increase in employer NICs. He got ‘black hole’ back from that and so asked whether she agreed with herself when she described such an increase as an attack on working people?
She replied with Tory chaos, a 70-year high in taxes, and the mess they left behind.
Relations crossed a tipping point abruptly, as they can in the House, when Dowden mentioned this was to be their last exchange “Awwww!” And Angela referred to the Battle of the Gingers, and one or the other of them in the context of the Commonwealth talked about the shared “historical and cultural ties – much like the pair of us”. More “Awwwww!”
It was a glimpse of good nature and a life outside, below politics.
But she had to close on Tory chaos and “rebuilding Britain” and it was impossible not to reflect on our national ills. The 70-year tax high, the 100 per cent public debt, the sick bill, the economic stagnation – it all goes back to lockdown and the £400 billion debt (as Paul Hogan said, “No. THIS is a black hole.”).
The single greatest public policy error in anyone’s lifetime, it was mandated by the Tories and whooped on by Labour. Both parties implicated in and responsible for the fastest public spending since World War Two, and neither side now able to acknowledge the error
As the Tories go into their Corbyn years, the argument in this form won’t win for either party. They are two fighting crocodiles in a death roll with each other. It will end in tears, obviously, and two very sorry crocodiles.
No wonder Nigel Farage is looking so cheerful.
PS: A late questioner gave us a nice example of political overreach. She wanted her Government “to do everything to keep menopausal women happy, healthy and wonderful”.
Of the many things beyond the power of government – even more than bringing peace to the Middle East – that is almost certainly the first.
Those who are sated of Labour’s gift-aid scandals may look forward to a few sex-based novelties. The Labour couple said to have been at it in the Reasons Room (not the Reasons Room!) have been relocated to the Aye Lobby lavatory. This is an anonymous revelation even when the couple is named as no one has ever heard of them. They are new intake, as Frankie Howerd would be pleased to note. On the other hand, a more prominent name is said to be running amok on the estate with a libido the size of a small pig – knocking down fences, rooting in the soil, and truffling in public. That name can’t be suppressed forever, can it? It’s in no one’s interests.
The SNP’s Stephen Flynn used his question at PMQs to dig at Rayner over Labour’s USA campaining trip:
“In today’s spirit of cross party working, will the Deputy Prime Minister join me in applauding the brave Labour staff members who’ve travelled across the Atlantic to campaign against Donald Trump?”
In response Rayner issued the Labour line verbatim: “People in their own time often go and campaign and that’s what we’ve seen. It happens in all political parties – people go and campaign and they do what they want to do in their own time with their own money.“ While housed by Dems…
It’s the battle of the deputies today as Dowden and Rayner trade blows in the Commons while Starmer flies to Samoa. Dowden jumped in with a simple question: “What is the Deputy Prime Minister’s definition of working people?”
Rayner swerved in response:
“The definition of working people are the people that the Tory party have failed for the last fourteen years.”
Dowden pressed on: Are the 5 million small business owners in Britain working people? Again Rayner dodged the question…
Rachel Reeves made it clear and public what the party’s definition of working people was during the election campaign: “Working people are people who get their income from going out to work everyday, and also pensioners that have worked all their lives and are now in retirement.” The upcoming budget has had quite the effect on the Cabinet’s memories…
Overseas Territories minister Stephen Doughty was asked in an Urgent Question to make a statement on the Rwanda-style deal agreed between the UK and Mauritius to transport any small boat migrants who turn there to St Helena. Or, at least, until Starmer gives that away too…
Doughty made pains to say it was a “contingency” until Mauritius takes over responsibility for dealing with migrants. At which point Labour ceases to care…
“We are hugely grateful to the St. Helena government for their assistance… the UK government has agreed to provide one-off funding of £6.65 million to St. Helena to improve health and education outcomes and upgrade government infrastructure.”
The St. Helena government will be happy with that gratuitious funding. Edward Leigh later asked Doughty the obvious question: Why can’t we deport people who turn up here to St Helena? No answer to that one…
The PM need work no more on his patient, calm, Government of Service persona. It has achieved the perfection of the pulpit; gleaming with episcopal polish.
He rose to the despatch box and laid before the House with simplicity, humility, and (were we imagining it?) a hint of submission to the eternal, the murdered David Amess, a dead general, a Holocaust survivor, and Alex Salmond. Ah, yes, what a hole he left behind him.
Sir Keir’s famous idea is that he and his Cabinet constitute the grown-up Restoration. But his clerical calm is (with thanks to Julie Burchill’s formula), a child’s idea of what a grown-up is. As most of us discerned from the age of nine – grown-ups are not just boring and evasive but essentially fraudulent.
So, the pleasure it gives is very considerable when the Prime Minister is rattled out of his piety, to reveal a familiar and slightly rat-like political character within.
It was this that, with considerable House of Commons skill, Rishi Sunak manouevred him into showing us all.
Rishi noted China’s militaristic exercises in the Taiwan Straits, and got a slightly unsteady answer. He brought up David Lammy’s forthcoming visit to Beijing and got a neatly packaged response. He brought up the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme that would detect and deter China’s attempts to intimidate and coerce our citizens and said that the Government was declining to implement it. Then he asked one of those lethal, one-word questions: “Why?”
Yes, good question actually. Why?
The PM stood. He paused. He summoned an answer. Nothing arrived. The political Deliveroo had gone to the wrong address. Keir mustered any eloquence he could and said, “That isn’t … correct.”
And to cat calls, hooting, cries of astonishment, he sat down. It was a loss of face that even Gordon Brown did not suffer.
He might have got away with it by invoking the sacred bond of secrecy between a prime minister and his security service, but he isn’t quick like that. He is calm. He is stable. He is patient and serious. He is not agile.
Rishi had more. He deposited, en passant, a poisonous little barb under the prime minister’s skin: “If he is going to give the security forces the tools they need, I would urge him to get up to speed on this.”
The courteous manner was particularly cruel and gave additional pleasure to aficionados of parliamentary brutality.
But then the finale. The Freedom of Speech Bill of the previous government would have protected universities from the (actually shocking) degree of political and intellectual suppression China has bought for itself in Russell Group universities. This is well known and has a dimension of national security to it.
The PM now actually stuttered. He said he didn’t think this was a suitable area for party political points. That is what he said. Protecting the speech rights of indigenous students against the imperial reach of a foreign power was a party political point. And for once, the backbench howling and front bench cringing (indeed, very talented, almost experimental howling and cringing) destabilised him. He limped off in entirely the wrong direction:
“Throughout the last Parliament we stood with Government on all matters of security.” He tried to gain some purchase on the argument. “I worked with the security and intelligence service for five years, prosecuting cases. I know first hand the work they do, as a lawyer. And as prime minister. And he knows that.”
The, “And he knows that,” as he sat down produced actual, non-performative cringing. It was within the three most embarrassing moments of a generation. We must be grateful to the PM for allowing us into the inner sanctum of his psyche (and for allowing us out again).
The mortification – which should have been good for the episcopal soul – pushed him into a childish conclusion. “He talks about the last government…” he began and then we were off China, national security and WWIII and back to utter failure, fewer choices, foundation-fixing and giving the country its future back.
Not calm, not patient, not serviceable.
NB: Alex Smith (L) set back her career in the party by a full parliament as she urged the abolition of the hereditary principle. Has she no idea how the Labour party works?
