Sir Keir Starmer was in the Hague. I know, I know, you’d have thought they would have done Blair first. Sorry to get your hopes up, but the Prime Minister was in fact there for the Nato summit. He was doubtless bringing to bear all the soft power which the government had bought by paying to give away the Chagos. Ha ha. You heard it here first, Keir Starmer: geopolitical anti-Viagra.
The main thrust of Ange’s answers was: ‘Yeah but no but the Tories’
Anyway, all this meant that the deputy PM was in the hot seat again. The first question that Big Ange faced wasn’t a question at all but the by now standard self-respect-immolation by a backbench Labour MP, the ceaselessly embarrassing Mike Tapp. He went on a rant about the Tory record on crime with all the dignity of a loose suitcase crashing down an escalator at Luton airport. Sir Lindsay Hoyle cut him short and told Ange she didn’t really need to answer on account of it not actually being a question. For how long will Labour backbenchers be happy to commit these acts of craven embarrassment every week? They don’t seem to get much in return.
We then came to Mel Stride. Possibly due to her own insecurities, the Leader of the Opposition is still committed to the random rotation model of deputation. Presumably hapless shadow cabinet members have to assemble in her office and draw straws. This week the loser – sorry winner – was the shadow chancellor. I have to confess I did not have particularly high hopes for the man who claimed he had ‘Melmentum’ at the Tory leadership contest last year. But he started with two decent jokes suggesting that he and the deputy PM had more in common than people might think; they both, he said, disagreed viscerally with the Chancellor. He added that a number of people behind her wanted the arrangement whereby she replaced the PM to be permanent. Even Ange permitted herself a hopeful smile at the latter.
Sir Mel pushed his opponent on whether there would be a vote in the House next Tuesday on benefit cuts. Ange assured him there would, although the shadow chancellor pointed out that we’d heard that one before. Indeed; the government is less in the business of U-turns and is now engaged in a sort of perma-doughnut, like joy-riding teenagers attempting to destroy a neighbour’s lawn.
The main thrust of Ange’s answers was: ‘Yeah but no but the Tories’. They had stood idly by, which was something she could never do. This was the Good Samaritan meets Vicky Pollard. Whether it was tax rises or the welfare bill, she listed how the Tories had done the same thing – but somehow worse – to the economy. Next to her sat the Chancellor, looking like a petrified marsupial. At one point she managed a grit of the teeth and a shake of the head but the general impression remained. She was a Lego opossum, a wombat with rigor mortis.
After Sir Mel’s slightly blustery but ultimately futile attempt to get an answer from the Deputy Prime Minister it was the turn of others. But the Ginger Sphinx of Ashton-under-Lyne was not budging. Daisy Cooper of the Lib Dems got a riddle of an answer on the carer allowance and multiple MPs found ways to convert questions on topics as diverse as homelessness, nursery places and council funding structures into point-scoring against the Tories. At least someone’s living somewhere rent-free. That said, I dread to think what the other tenants inside Big Ange’s head are like.
Sureena Brackenridge, an exceptionally shouty woman who is mystifyingly the MP for Wolverhampton North-East gave a high-decibel rant about free school meals, which once again seemed to be saying how wonderful the government was. It was Brian Blessed meets Jasper Carrott meets that woman who reads the news out in North Korea.
There were still a few moments of fun to be had. At one point Hilary Benn’s phone went off, revealing that his ringtone is the repeated chime of a suburban doorbell – think Hyacinth Bucket. Sadly unequal to the challenge of turning it off, The Honourable Hilary sprinted out of the chamber, dinging as he went. Andrew Snowden gave a pretty damning litany of the specific failings of the Government front bench. Would she encourage the PM himself to be shown the door in the upcoming reshuffle? Unsurprisingly, Ange enjoyed this question. Given his spirited delivery ‘perhaps next week he can have a go?’ Ange continued: ‘The leader of the opposition said she was going to get better week on week- she already has in the last two weeks!’ Even the Tories laughed at this. The faintly unsettling gangland lock-in vibe was back.
There was a final moment of camp flirtation with Ange’s previous sparring partner, Sir Oliver ‘Olive’ Dowden. ‘I am so pleased to be asking her a question again’ he gushed. ‘I hope he’s got his factor 50 on out there, he knows how tough it can be for us gingers’ she purred. I was put in mind of Mr Humphries asking Mrs Slocombe about the state of her pussy on Are You Being Served?. Talking of 70s throwbacks, the final question was from Jeremy Corbyn, who now sits so far into the corner of the opposition backbenches that he might as well yell his queries from a barge in the Thames.
Next week, global crises all being equal, we will be back to the Nasal Knight. I suspect most of the House of Commons – his own side especially – will be hoping that his Hague detention could last just one week longer.
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