Lloyd Evans

Sir Keir has changed his tactics. At long last. Today marks a year since the first Covid measures were introduced to parliament and the Labour leader has finally realised that the pandemic doesn’t work for him. Even the most brilliant ambush will be dismissed as opportunistic and unpatriotic. So he dropped the superbug altogether. And he trimmed down his usual bloated rhetoric and raced through his questions by 12.11 p.m. So we got five minutes less of the usual Starmer stodge. Boris was a bit wrong-footed by this nimbler and less loquacious opponent. But Sir Keir’s chosen topics — extending the furlough and keeping business rates low — stood no chance of embarrassing the PM. Wait for the budget, shrugged Boris.

It’s a different game at PMQs. With fewer than 40 members present, the debates feel more like a committee meeting than a full-throated parliamentary session. It’s bad for democracy if the highlight of the parliamentary week looks so static and uninspiring. When the weather cheers up they should move to a secure location outdoors, (like the gardens of Buckingham Palace), where more members could attend and the sessions would be livelier. Meanwhile, MPs are chafing under the restrictions. They’ve started to mess about like schoolkids in detention. They play games. They needle each other. They stretch the rules, and they dare the Speaker to shut them up or tick them off. Today they debated border closures.

It was a day of awful numbers. And even more gruesome cliches. The Labour leader started it. ‘Yesterday we passed the tragic milestone of 100,000 deaths,’ said Sir Keir Starmer. Then he informed us that, ‘this is not just a statistic.’ He explained that each dead person has connections to other individuals who remain alive. He gave three examples. ‘A mum, a dad, a sister.’ Then he gave four more. ‘A brother, a friend, a colleague, a neighbour.’ Next he premiered a well-crafted denunciation of government failings that relied on the repetition of ‘slow’ at the start of each phrase. ‘Slow, slow, slow’, he boomed, like the tolling of a death-knell o’er a frosty graveyard.

Parliament, 0. Computer Bugs 1. That was the score at PMQs today after a software glitch turned the debate into a cyber-shambles. The disaster unfolded as Ian Blackford asked his two questions. The SNP member, wearing a smart three-piece suit, joined the chamber from his sumptuously appointed country seat in the Hebrides. Blackford is known as a champion of the people and today he had a golden opportunity to stir up trouble for Boris. The very fishermen whom the PM had promised to enrich after Brexit are facing ruin because paper-wonks at sea-ports are holding up the transit of fresh fish. A perfect issue for the SNP.  But Blackford ignored the plight of Scottish trawler men and turned instead to the presidential inauguration.

Jeremy Corbyn launched his 'Project for Peace and Justice' on Sunday with a Zoom conference featuring a starry panel of left-wing activists. The online format is a weak and feeble beast compared with a live rally. You miss the crackle and excitement in the air. You long for the cheers and whoops of a properly pumped-up crowd. Instead we got the beaming face of Baroness Blower, a former teacher, who introduced the participants from a desk in her sitting room. After each speech she offered sugary compliments like a kindly aunt feigning wide-eyed surprise while opening her birthday presents. ‘That was absolutely fantastic,’ she said as Scarlett Westbrook finished the opening contribution. Ms Westbrook is a rabble-rouser-on-the-make who has spotted an opportunity.

Where to begin? That was one of most absorbing PMQs of recent times. Three top moments: the Speaker rebuked the PM for improper language. The Labour leader was humiliated by one of his own backbenchers. And Ian Blackford asked a good question. That’s right. It finally happened. The SNP leader in the House of Commons — the great windbag of the Western Isles — made history by raising a sensible point. The Scottish shellfish industry, he said, has been shafted by Brexit. The problem? Red-tape. Last Monday a hapless trawlerman had to watch while his £40,000 haul turned rotten on the dockside as a posse of EU form-fiddlers fretted over their paperwork. Scottish lobstermen now prefer to steam across the North Sea and land their pink crustaceans in Denmark.

The Speaker was busy at PMQs. He jumped in at the start and told Michael Fabricant, the orange-haired member for Lichfield, to stop rambling and get to the point. He admonished an SNP member for addressing the Prime Minister as ‘you.’ Convention dictates that ‘you’ in the Commons means the Speaker himself. ‘You keep saying 'you'. I’m not responsible for any of this,’ Lindsay Hoyle said. And he jokingly called Boris, ‘Father Christmas,’ after a Tory suggested that the PM was like Santa for school kids. So there seemed to be a semblance of seasonal cheer in the chamber. And then Sir Keir Starmer stood up and read out a list of apocalyptic tidings like a town-crier during the Black Death.

He’s back. A year after losing a second general election in a row, Jeremy Corbyn has launched his ‘Project for Peace and Justice’ with a video on YouTube. He appears in a natty off-white jacket, with a tinge of blue, like a referee at the Henley Regatta. Speaking in a low, measured voice, as if reading a story to children, he recites an inventory of global problems which he proposes to solve. Behind him is the project’s slick new signage. The P and the J form an elongated oval, in smart white-striped livery, like the classic layout of the 1970s Scalextric track. This attractive piece of artwork must have cost a packet. And somebody has to pay for it. Which is where you and I come in.

It really is crunch time. The international game of Texas Hold’em is reaching its climax. The lesser players have folded. Only two high-rollers remain at the table. Beads of sweat are appearing on their brows. Each is feeling for a lucky charm discreetly held in a side-pocket, and each is scouring the other's eyes for signs of fear or uncertainty. The turn of a card will determine the outcome. This is the position as Boris prepares for tonight’s summit feast with Ursula von der Leyen. At PMQs, he was confronted by Sir Keir Starmer who appeared via video-link from his Camden home. Labour’s spin-team missed a golden opportunity here.

The House welcomed the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, as he announced his spending commitments for the coming year. Rish the Dish delivered all kinds of goals and priorities for the UK but he left his personal plans in obscurity. Or did he? The Chancellor’s naked ambition may be sheathed in a Jermyn Street suit but his strategy is easy to read: knife the Honey Monster and evict him from his lair. Today he was addressing himself to his colleagues in cabinet, and in the wider party, and he wanted to show political intelligence and presentational shrewdness. His critics have already accused him of betraying the NHS by freezing pay settlements for the next 12 months, and he dodged that bullet by guaranteeing to boost the earnings of a million health workers.