Madeline Grant

Short of dressing the former Duke of York in a Carmen Miranda-style fruit headdress and attaching two Catherine wheels to each of his buttocks, the Labour party couldn’t have done much more to draw attention to one famous pal of Jeff Epstein this week – from threatening bills on the line of succession to the Secretary of State for Defence’s briefing that the former prince will have his naval ranks stripped from him. Thank heavens for that; it’s well known, of course, that no sexual deviant ever served in the Royal Navy. This is a fascinating tactic from the Labour party which reveals two truths. One: they believe the general public to be intensely stupid. Two: that some of their number are even stupider than we previously thought.

In the midst of all the slip ups, the corruption and the lies, you might have forgotten the most consequential piece of legislation this government is forcing through Parliament. The assisted suicide bill has passed from the bony, blundering hands of the Grim Leadreaper and into the doughy, smothering mitts of Lord Falconer as it makes its way through the House of Lords. Unsurprisingly, given the legislation makes back of a fag packet shopping lists look like Magna Carta, their lordships have been giving it a kicking in committee. In some ways it’s a difficult subject to sketch; the stakes are unbelievably high for the poor, the sick, the disabled. Then again, the people behind it are much easier to mock. Take the aptly named Baroness Hayter.

‘That’s the difference a Labour government makes!’ The Prime Minister has taken to ending the self-congratulatory rants he deploys in lieu of answers in the House of Commons with this irritating catchphrase. As if the colony of gremlins currently running the country are to be advertised to us like 1950s household goods. One can imagine Sir Keir, strapped into a pinny, removing a burned cake from the oven, turning to the camera and saying, ‘that’s the difference a Labour government makes!’ He wheeled out this supremely annoying verbal tic a number of times at Prime Minister’s Questions. The problem with it, of course, is that most of the differences a Labour government makes are negative ones. A difference is being felt for sure, just not a good one.

Hadush Kebatu’s Magical Mystery Tour of North London was the subject of this afternoon’s debate in the Commons. In a scandal which may as well have been permanently accompanied by the Benny Hill theme tune, the police and prison service conspired accidentally to release the Ethiopian schoolgirl-botherer onto the streets of Chelmsford on Friday, followed by a two-day tour of the capital’s parks. I wonder what trip Mr Kebatu has planned next? A wander around Windsor? Inevitably this raised questions in Parliament. Kebatu isn’t alone: both Channel migrant numbers and accidental releases of the mad, bad and dangerous have risen precipitously under Labour.

Have you ever wondered what a less competent Rachel Reeves would be like? If you’re a small business owner, the London Stock Exchange or Sir Keir Starmer, it’s presumably the sort of thing that keeps you up at night. Yet it isn't just a thing of nightmares – this concept exists in the flesh in the form of Reeves’s sister Ellie. The younger Reeves makes the Chancellor look like Bismarck. The younger Reeves makes the Chancellor look like Bismarck She has recently been awarded the role of Solicitor General, which makes her sound like a very senior cottager. Although, frankly, having George Michael, John Gielgud or the bloke who played Old Man Steptoe would have been an improvement at the dispatch box.

When John Profumo had to resign due to scandalous behaviour, he famously went to clean lavatories. Angela Rayner, by contrast, has been up to goodness knows what. Perhaps she’s been clothes shopping, appearing as she did today in the house, for the first time in ages, wearing an identical suit to Rachel Reeves.  As the disgraced former deputy prime minister rose to speak, Labour MPs let out an almighty yell of approval. The last person to give Angela Rayner a cheer like that was probably her mortgage lender. A vast number of MPs had turned up to give their support – including what looked like half the cabinet’s big guns, if you can call them that.

Samworth Brothers are the biggest producers of pork pies in Britain. Or so they claim. I suspect they will find at the end of this financial year that they have very stiff competition from a new producer in the field, Sir Keir Rodney Starmer. Except it isn’t just porkies that Sir Keir indulges in. Today we saw the full gamut of his honesty allergy: evasion, obfuscation, straw-manning and gaslighting were all deployed as he wriggled and squealed like it was Melton Mowbray market day. The specific topic which gave us this show of Sir Keir at his worst was China. While he’s been busy in Egypt, being batted off by Donald Trump and watching Adolescence for the fifty-thousandth time, yet another scandal has been quietly enfolding his listing and useless government.

Yvette Cooper managed to say ‘let me be clear’ twice, in a couple of minutes during her interview with Nick Robinson on the Today Programme this morning. For seasoned Labour-watchers, the phrase ‘let me be clear’ was one inherited from the grand panjandrum of political deceit – Tony Blair himself – and is almost always an indicator that the person saying is it about to be as unclear as possible. They might as well walk around with the phrase ‘I’m lying’ written on their foreheads in red paint, so obvious an indicator of incoming deceit it is. If these are the grown ups, then send in the clowns The Foreign Secretary was on the radio in part to try and explain away Labour’s growing China problem.

Prior to Kemi Badenoch’s arrival the Conservative party played us recordings of her voice piped over dramatic lift muzak. Conference seasons are always bizarre – gatherings as they are of remarkable sub-species of people who look at British politics and think ‘wow, that’s exciting’ rather than ‘oh God, what now’ (and I include myself in this category). It isn’t showbusiness for ugly people, it’s trainspotting for maniacs. Yet by the standards of conference weirdness, the soundtrack aside, Mrs Badenoch was, well, quite normal.  As she arrived on stage in person she seemed genuinely surprised by the warmth of the welcome.

Robert Jenrick has been walking a tightrope. Over the course of the Conservative party conference he has been having to navigate the tricky situation of playing both the prince over the water and the loyal lieutenant to Kemi Badenoch. Mr Jenrick so far has played his cards very well. He is successfully channelling both Bonnie Prince Charlie and Blondin, the man who pushed a wheelbarrow over Niagara Falls. Or even David Miliband meets Stan Laurel. Today was his most difficult performance yet. Be too bland and he’d join the legions of Tories who might have been king – destined to join the Rab Butler-Jeremy Hunt memorial club.

What is the purpose of Mel Stride? I don’t ask this to be personal I just genuinely don’t know. In some ways it’s a problem for all shadow chancellors: the Treasury is the most practical of departments, the opposition can only theorise about it. The economy ought to be the only trump card the Tories have left. They’re essentially in a game of strip-poker wearing only their socks and with one ace left – namely, the fact that the economy is going to tank even more when people learn the true extent of Rachel Reeves’s incompetence at the Budget. Meanwhile Reform’s spending plans might as well have been typed up in Babylonic cuneiform. They bear as much relation to reality as a Beckett play transcribed by a baboon.