The House of Commons these days is hardly an inspiring place. There can be little denying that it is a shadow of the debating arena it was in the days of Gladstone and Disraeli. It’s not even what it was from the days of Cameron and Corbyn.
Sir Keir replied that there was no evidence of two-tier policing, which in this day and age is increasingly like adamantly maintaining that the sky isn’t blue
But on days like today, when the news is filled with the appalling reality of the policies cooked up there, it appears even more contemptible and trivial than usual. The banality of evil has never been so banal.
The session started with an exchange between Mrs Badenoch and Sir Keir about welfare spending. In light of the admission by Burke and/or Hare impersonator, Pat McFadden, that most backbench MPs are vindictive halfwits who think their job is to screw working people out of as much money as possible, the Leader of the Opposition tried to ask Sir Keir about welfare spending and whether he had any plan at all to keep it under control.
What she got in return was the usual waffle; a mad defence of the catastrophic Renters’ Rights Act and a bizarre implication that Mel Stride was solely to blame for the excesses of the welfare state, all fused with the inevitable mention of breakfast clubs. Labour frontbenchers are obsessed with these and routinely act as if giving kids some toast of a morning is roughly equivalent in civilisational terms to putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom.
‘The problem isn’t the Shadow Chancellor, it’s the actual Chancellor’, said Mrs Badenoch in response. Rachel Reeves was not in her seat, having presumably been gazumped by a door marked ‘pull’ on her way over from Number 11. However, it was a relatively calm exchange all things considered, only spicing up a bit when Mrs Badenoch referenced Sir Keir’s willingness to throw his own ministers under the bus as the Mandy scandal drags on: ‘He’s more than happy to release their text messages, whilst his own disappear’, she crowed. In response Sir Keir pulled a face like a blobfish with haemorrhoids.
Elsewhere there were the usual toady questions from the dignity-phobes on the backbenches – this one about how wonderful it was that the Gatwick Express was now in public ownership. It’s sort of funny that for all the dreams of Marx and Engels, nationalising a shuttle to the nation’s secondary airport is about the best the great thrust of the Proletarian revolution can manage at the moment. One Lib Dem screamed so loudly and excitedly for Ed Davey, as if he were a pudgier, balder Jonas Brother, that it drew laughs from across the House. Davey had quite a good joke at Tony Blair’s expense – referring to his lengthy essay about how good his ideas were as ‘a new form of drone warfare’.
However, it was neither Blair nor welfare that was the main issue that came up again and again in the House of Commons today. That – inevitably – was the murder of Henry Nowak. Most MPs fell over themselves to chant the increasingly hollow mantra of how division will never win. One MP however was not going to pull the party line. Nigel Farage’s intervention on the subject; specifically asking the Prime Minister about two-tier policing (explicitly enshrined in the police chiefs’ code of practice) drew screams and howls from Labour and Lib Dem benches. Yowls of ‘Shame on you!’ and ‘condemn the violence!’ were bellowed by MPs with visible hatred in their eyes. From the reaction you’d have thought Mr Farage had dropped his trousers rather than ask a question about law and order.
Mr Farage is often screamed at when he speaks in the House. MPs really seem to get off on this, proving their progressive credentials by shouting down a man who, if polling is to be believed, roughly 30 per cent of the country will vote for. Perhaps it’s a superstition; they think if they shout loudly enough somehow all the issues which Mr Farage raises will just go away and Parliament will revert to being their cozy club. Perhaps it’s the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming ‘la la la’. Either way, it certainly isn’t damaging Mr Farage as they intend nor, I suspect, will it be something many of them will be able to indulge in for much longer.
Sir Keir replied that there was no evidence of two-tier policing, which in this day and age is increasingly like adamantly maintaining that the sky isn’t blue. He then gave Mr Farage a finger-wagging lecture for departing from the agreed narrative. He likes giving these, but they are not something, I suspect, he will be able to indulge in for much longer either.
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