Thank God! Today was the last Prime Minister’s Questions before Christmas and so Sir Keir and Mrs Badenoch began their speeches with seasonal greetings. Was a Christmas truce about to break out? Unlikely; Sir Keir couldn’t resist a poke at Reform’s Russian problems. ‘If wise men from the East come bearing gifts, this time report it to the police’ he scoffed. Today, Nigel Farage, Sir Keir’s very own Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, loomed down on proceedings from the Commons viewing gallery. Even he chuckled at this opening gag.
The death of Tiny Tim is genuinely more likely to bring about a smile than the Prime Minister’s gags
Things got less Christmassy still when the Leader of the Opposition opened with a reference to the PM’s abysmal performance at the Liaison Committee and his self-pitying moan that when he pulls levers nothing happens.
Mrs Badenoch asked whether he blamed himself or the levers. There was perhaps a subtle nod both towards the terrible relations between Downing Street and some of the rest of Sir Keir’s party and the profession of the PM’s progenitor here: a bad tool always blames his workmen, as the saying almost goes.
‘What pubs has he been speaking to?’ Mrs Badenoch trilled, ‘They’ve been barred from almost all of them.’ It’s probably a good thing; one shudders to think what the average landlord would want to put in as a special extra ingredient were Sir Keir to come in and order a Non-Denominationally Specific Wintertime Celebratory Hydration Juice.
The festive season is a period of disappointment for many, so Mrs Badenoch brought up all the broken promises – on unemployment, on tax and on the doctors’ strikes – which the Prime Minister had failed to deliver on. There aren’t many similarities between Sir Keir and Father Christmas; I can only think of their shared affinities for red and the fact that they are both regularly close to the sack.
Aside from occasional flashes of anger, Sir Keir’s responses have been pretty lacklustre of late. He draws almost no cheers from his own MPs and the only time he gets any laughs are at his own expense. He is becoming the political equivalent of a Christmas tree fly-tipped on a curb in early January, paid attention only by the cocked legs of passing dogs.
Even by his recent standards, today’s final ‘jokey’ answer was abominable. He intended it to be some festive fun but it was about as Christmassy as an AA meeting at Oliver Cromwell’s house in mid-June: ‘She’ll be Home Alone this Christmas, while the MP for Runcorn is dreaming of a White Christmas.’
It’s often difficult to list jobs that Sir Keir would be worse at than Prime Minister, but I think we can conclusively add ‘Christmas Cracker Joke Writer’ to that list. The death of Tiny Tim is genuinely more likely to bring about a smile than the Prime Minister’s gags.
In the theme of the Dickens classic, we had ghosts of Christmas past too: Nick Timothy got a not very Christmassy explosion from our very own suited and bequiffed Christmas ham: ‘If only he’d done something when he was in Downing Street’. Another flashback to the May years was an appearance too, fresh from a panto in which he played the Wizard of Oz, by Jeremy Corbyn. He brought up the Palestine Action hunger strikers, to which Sir Keir gave Mr Corbyn about five words in reply. One suspects they do not exchange Christmas cards.
Elsewhere Antonia Bance, the MP for Tipton and Wednesbury, delivered a rant worthy of the EastEnders festive cliffhangers of yore. ‘We can’t afford the economic vandalism of Reform UK!’ she boomed. It was like Frank Butcher never left. Up in the viewing gallery, Mr Farage pulled one of his Cheshire cat grins whenever he or his party was invoked by a fearful Labour backbencher.
The star turn came from Stephen Flynn of the SNP. Mr Flynn’s visceral dislike of the Prime Minister is always evident in the chamber. Today, he glared down at him, listing in considerable detail all the things that were going wrong for Sir Keir while insisting that he wasn’t going to ask about them. Instead he asked ‘in a spirit of goodwill…how will the Prime Minister be spending his last Christmas in Downing Street?’
‘I’m getting an update from the Chancellor on Grangemouth!’ spat the PM. He was not a happy Christmas elf at all. It’s genuinely not outside the realm of possibility that this actually is how he will spend Christmas. One can imagine him spending the 25th of December poring over the remnants of the economy before going back upstairs for a cold stuffing sandwich.
All in all, a pretty disappointing festive offering, not a great goose but rather a lukewarm nut roast, although, it must be said, with plenty of turkeys. New year resolutions are just round the corner; though with this government still in office, you’d be mad to give up drinking.
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