There was a veritable ‘last day of school’ vibe in parliament as it was prorogued in anticipation of the King’s Speech in May. Though, to be fair, I’m not sure many schools – not even Eton – have quite the same concentration of shady characters as Westminster does these days. It’s the traditional time to review the parliament, for governments to look back over the year of successes they’ve had. Quite aside from the obvious fact that the vista from the Treasury bench in the House of Commons is akin to a first class view of an accident black spot, the problem with any review of PMQs for this parliament would be that almost all of it has looked and sounded the same.
Each week, regardless of who does the questioning or what the particular cock-up is, we get the same Dadaist non-answers. It has been a fever dream of repeated phrases – ‘Liz Truss’, ‘fixing the foundations’, ‘14 years’, and perhaps most annoyingly, ‘that’s the difference a Labour government makes’, which is sort of like a less inspiring version of ‘that’s why mums go to Iceland’. They seemed to have largely dropped the ‘£22 billion black hole’, or maybe they’ve found a way to have it filled. Either way, though the catchphrases come and go, the whole doom loop of repetition has resembled a very boring trip on LSD.
Today, the last of the parliament, was no different. Mrs Badenoch tried to ask the Prime Minister about the spiralling welfare bill and our lack of defence preparedness. In return, she got a random list of things he thought the Tories had done wrong and a segue into the war in Iran. Sometimes I wonder whether he hits his head on the way into the chamber. If an elderly relative started communicating like this, you’d make them see a GP.
Demob happy, it wasn’t just Mrs Badenoch who was on the receiving end of Sir Keir’s patronising tone. In a rare move, Sir Ed Davey decided to ask a question of substance, referencing comments made by the new ambassador to Washington which suggest Sir Keir is out of his depth and past his sell-by-date. ‘I expect frivolous accusations from the leader of the opposition,’ sneered Sir Keir, ‘but better from the man in the wetsuit’. He managed to be both unnecessarily bitchy and supremely pompous, like if Mean Girls had been set in Lincoln’s Inn.
Stephen Flynn – who has torn shreds out of Sir Keir as the SNP leader in Westminster, stood up, and began: ‘This may be my last PMQs. I suppose the same is true for the Prime Minister.’ Sir Keir shot him a look full of hate. ‘Stay!’, cheered the Tories. One thing that can be said for the Starmer ministry is that it has brought unlikely people together. What else would unite Nigel Farage, Kemi Badenoch, Jeremy Corbyn and Mr Flynn other than raw contempt for Sir Keir?
There are plenty of luvvies and quangocracy types who affect a bemused horror at the Prime Minister’s extreme unpopularity. I say plenty, that’s probably an exaggeration given they could all fit – and probably live in – one small London postcode. There’s his deceit, his incompetence and his seeming limitless contempt for many of the things that other people love about Britain. Now one might reasonably claim all those things for Boris Johnson but, as Ed Davey – hardly a Johnson fan – pointed out in the chamber today, not even he whipped his MPs on a parliamentary standards issue. No, perhaps the most supremely unattractive aspect of Sir Keir is his supreme sense of unearned superiority. Or as Mrs Badenoch put it today: ‘The whole country is sick of this man’s tone-deaf, pompous moralising.’
Indeed, one thing that the round of scandals of the Fever Dream Parliament have shown is that the Prime Minister is so sure of his own virtue and decency that he forgets to behave decently. Or that at least is the most charitable reading of the blaring (or should that be Blairing) hypocrisy which has become the norm at PMQs.
We saw more of it today, any time anything approaching scrutiny reared its head. Labour still seems to be peddling the line that anyone daring to notice their astonishing corruption and incompetence is only doing so in an attempt to frustrate their noble and ‘difference-making’ plan to cover every inch of the nation in breakfast clubs. ‘They don’t like what we’re delivering’, squawked Sir Keir. Nor, if polling is to be believed, do the general public, who can see that, having squealed blue murder during years of Tory corruption, Labour now thinks they’re stupid enough to not notice – or care – when they get up to their own mucky business.
‘We’re just getting started’, Sir Keir told the House
Key to the maintenance of this wonderland where Labour only ever does good, has been that great fixture of this parliament: the dignity-vacuum, the shameless bottom crawler. Today we had a real classic of the genre. Anna Dixon, MP for Shipley, screeched about how much she was looking forward to campaigning in the local elections because of the effects of the Renters’ Rights Act (already causing havoc across the country as landlords sell up and tenants get booted out) and the ubiquity of breakfast clubs (as already mentioned, these appear to be under threat because people keep asking the PM awkward questions about the pals of paedophiles, or something like that).
In his final shouty non-answer, Sir Keir told the House that ‘we’re just getting started’. If, for a rare moment, he is telling the truth, then things are about to get even worse than many of us feared. A sign of the damage already done was being mournfully marked just down the corridor as the Upper House bid farewell to the last hereditary peers. These dukes, earls and marquesses might well have every reason for imperiousness, but leave after careers of dutiful, humble service. If you want real pomposity, real lack of accountability and a preening arrogance that would shame any king or queen of old, then you need to go to No. 10, Downing Street.
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