Turkeys fail to fly
Lloyd Evans 2:30pm
Hague was a washout at PMQs today. The wittiest performer on the front benches failed to lift the house with a single joke. Since ditching the after-dinner circuit, perhaps he no longer needs parliament to advertise his stand-up skills. Opposite him Hattie Harman was her usual lumpen self, slow and predictable, full of stumbles, repetitions and false starts. Her mental dexterity is so poor she gives the impression that talking in complete sentences is a skill she has only just mastered.
Hague took her to task on footling, no-brainer issues. The house is rising too early, he said. Unbelievable. He wants to mount an attack on this knackered, directionless government and he chooses the calendar. Harman’s answer – the house is also returning early – was as limp as the question. Hague then asked if Labour intends to copy Tory plans to criminalise those caught in possession of ‘illegally harvested timber.’ A new crime. Hattie was keen, of course. But are the Tories seriously proposing to jail people whose mahogany table fails to satisfy some arbitrary eco-statute? This could be the ruin of the north London dinner party circuit. It’s bizarre that legislators don’t know how laws like this work in real life. Whenever a new inspectorate is born another black market – in bogus certificates of compliance – slithers into the world with lusty cries.
Hague couldn’t find a way to hurt Harman today. In her bumbling but single-minded fashion she managed to change the subject and portray the Conservatives as a party of tax-dodging millionaires who cosy up to questionable allies in the EU. She got away with it too. But Hague wasn’t even trying.
Vince Cable asked a pertinent question about tax evasion which HMRC reckons costs us £40bn a year. Hattie deliberately misunderstood the question and blamed the reduced tax-take on ‘the global recession’. David Heathcoat-Amory mocked the new Fiscal Responsibility Bill by asking if failure to meet its provisions would result in ministers being fined. This wonderful joke was too exquisitely cerebral for the tenor of today’s insipid debate.
Another Tory backbencher, Ann McIntosh, stood up looking even more aristocratic than her high-born opponent and made an oblique and rather laboured point involving Copenhagen, Hans Christian Andersen and global warming. ‘Does she have a favourite fairy-tale? The Emperor’s New Clothes?’ asked the Duchess of McIntosh glowering angrily from beneath a costly crust of face paint. ‘We can learn a lesson from fairytales,’ said Hattie, ‘Avoid the Brothers Grimm which is what we’d get if the Tories won …’ Labour loved that. Convinced she now had a reputation as a wit she listened carefully to Nigel Evans’s request that the PM cheer us up over Christmas by calling a general election. ‘That turkey won’t fly,’ quipped Hattie.
The only moment of drama came as the session closed. The defence secretary Bob Ainsworth, who with his strange little moustache looks like a bank manager dressed up as Hitler, got to his feet to make a statement. Members swarmed for the exits. ‘Bob Ainsworth’ is a weapon with two settings. His name, or his title, ‘Secretary of State for Defence’ can clear a building faster than a mortar attack. Perhaps we should use him to flush out the Taleban.
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Verity
December 16th, 2009 3:41pm Report this commentI'd say that Mr Hague is now convinced that policy-free David Cameron is not going to make a dent on the commies at the next election and is planning to bow out. I'll bet he announces his retirement from politics early in the New Year.
AndyinBrum
December 16th, 2009 3:46pm Report this commentMr grumpy. Has someone weed in your cup of tea this morning?
London Calling
December 16th, 2009 4:30pm Report this commentMeanwhile…cheques will be phased out by 2018, do note it in your diary. Agnes next door needs a hip replacement and its snowing here in London…at least I think it is unless Iran has been attacked and it’s the fall out of a nuclear winter…
Do cheer up…anyone would think we were in a recession and we had more serious issues to contend with…
Harriet Harmen
“I would like to remind the House that we are here for a very good reason, the only problem is I cannot for the life of me remember what that reason was”…
To flush out the Taleban, send a travelling salesman selling Gucci sunglasses and top of the range motorbikes… They hate everything Westernised within moderation…
JohnAnt
December 16th, 2009 4:35pm Report this commentIllegally harvested timber??
What are they planning to do? Issue local arrest warrants for lumberjacks on Tuvalu and Borneo?
Hague has finally lost it. Back to the lucrative rubber chickens, William.
Hysteria
December 16th, 2009 6:17pm Report this commentsheesh - the economy in melt-down, fighting a hot war overseas, dealing with the fall-out from Copenhagen and the potential fall-out of a different kind in Iran
and they are talking about the calendar and coffee tables.......
says it all really..
General Zod
December 16th, 2009 7:05pm Report this commentVerity, I'll bet he doesn't.
michael
December 16th, 2009 7:25pm Report this commentThe Tories don't fancy the rap for Gordon's mess.
It looks as though a hung parliament whilst the country wakes up might just suit them.
Boudicca
December 16th, 2009 9:13pm Report this commentHague was dire. I am consoling myself with the thought that perhaps they are deliberately easing up on the Govt at the moment - they wouldn't want Labour Ministers/MPs taking fright at the thought of election wipeout and ditching the Dear Leader at the last possible opportunity.
strapworld
December 16th, 2009 10:19pm Report this commentI believe that Verity is right. Hague has been so quiet these past months. I feel that he is disgusted with himself in agreeing to waving the white flag over the Lisbon Treaty. His fight has gone. He sees Cameron to be the fraud many of us have identified.
My view is that Cameron must step aside or face a melt down in tory support leading to a humiliating defeat.
wonderfulforhisage
December 16th, 2009 10:26pm Report this commentVerity, I'll drink to that.
And then a Cameroonian melt down, and out of the ashes/puddle a conservative party might arise. And they could call themselves Conservatives, or Tories or, best of all, UKIP.
Verity
December 17th, 2009 3:52am Report this commentJohn Ant - or may I call you John Provincial? -What are they planning to do? Issue local arrest warrants for lumberjacks on Tuvalu and Borneo?
Don't know about Tuvalu, but Borneo, definitely!
They don't arrest murderers or child abusers in Britain, but in Borneo, whether on the Malaysian side or the Indonesian side, they do stop those illegally felling trees.
Mike Towl
December 17th, 2009 7:57am Report this commentI watched PMQ's as usual c/o The Daily Politics. At the end of the most excruciating half hour since my vasectomy, I fully expected to find Anita, Old Brillo Pad and guests fast asleep in their chairs. Even Nick Robinson, who normally comes up with some intellectual clap trap to explain to we "prols." what its all been about, looked so glassy eyed I reckon the hip flask had been out since the first question! Even Charlie Clarke had turned affable, some drug this PMQ business!
Your article is spot on. How on earth did the Tories elect Little Willy as their leader? Tough one eh! Okay try this one then:- How did Labour promote Mad Hattie to Deputy Leader and head of the Male Re-indoctrination and Castration Directorate?
Answers on a postcard please.
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