One of the things we ought to consider more in judging politicians is whether they add to the gaiety of the nations. Does Kemi Badenoch? Alas no. Does Ed Davey? He thinks he does but doesn’t. Does Sir Keir Starmer add to the gaiety of nations? Actually, probably best not to answer that.
Labour’s front bench are a uniquely humourless lot; generally the cabinet look like the finalists of a lemon-sucking competition. One exception, who brings a sort of high-grade bumbling to everything he does, is David Lammy.
Whether it is his infamous Mastermind appearance or the time he said he couldn’t see any police whilst standing in front of a policeman, there can be little denying that the Sage of Tottenham has cemented his place alongside John Prescott and George Brown as a Labour deputy who appears to be in the post exclusively for comedy reasons. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that Sir Keir lost a bet and had to appoint him as the forfeit.
The Prime Minister was in Rio, presumably practicing his smalltalk at the COP30 summit (‘Meu pai era ferramenteiro’, ‘Buraco negro de 22 bilhoes de libras!’) and so the gods of comedy gave us Lammy at the despatch box. He started extremely strongly, giving a long and bloviating statement about Remembrance Day, which he managed to make about himself, only for it to become clear that he was the only member of the House not wearing a poppy. He later explained that he had bought a new suit that morning, ‘as his godmother was watching on TV’, and so had to have a poppy smuggled to him along the Labour benches.
Up against him was James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary. He was the perfect foil for Lammy, all quiet consideration while the Deputy Prime Minister blustered away. Cartlidge’s straight man routine, calmly repeating the same question – whether Lammy could assure the house that no other asylum-seeking criminals had been randomly let out onto the streets – only heightened the comedy as Lammy seemed determined to fly off the handle at incredibly minor provocations. He leaned so far over the despatch box to do his yelling that at one point he was bent at an angle of 45 degrees, waving his bottom in Bridget Phillipson’s face.
Cartlidge asked Lammy the same question five times. While having things repeated to him in a slow clear voice can hardly be an alien experience for the Deputy Prime Minister, this sent him absolutely wild. What made him even angrier was when Cartlidge reminded him what his job was – again, it seems unlikely that this is the first time this has happened. ‘Get a grip man, I know I’m the Justice Secretary!’ yelled Lammy. In fairness, I don’t think anyone should ever make assumptions about what David Lammy does or doesn’t know. Shoelaces probably look like nuclear fission to him.
Lammy indisputably adds to the gaiety of other nations
Indeed, while ‘what David Lammy doesn’t know’ might fill the Library of Alexandria, the specific question of whether he did know about the releasing of foreign criminals wasn’t – surprise, surprise – solved by his pretending that he hadn’t heard the question. Almost as soon as Lammy was sent back to whatever sharp-object-free environment he’s normally kept in, the news leaked that another foreign criminal had been accidentally released into the midst of the general public. This time an Algerian inmate of Wandsworth prison. Lammy claimed he was ‘absolutely outraged and appalled’. Truly every time you think these people have proved themselves to have plumbed new depths of incompetence they pull something else out of the hat. This government is a veritable gold rush of stupidity.
Lammy spent the rest of the session making weird asides – including a prolonged outlining of the LBC presenting schedule and making the claim that he was ‘5 per cent Scottish’. Clearly MPs enjoyed the Sage’s performance: just over an hour later they were demanding he return. This time, however, they wanted him to clarify whether he had misled the House about the wandering Algerian. It is not a story which seems likely to go away any time soon.
Lammy indisputably adds to the gaiety of other nations: the problem is that they’re almost certainly laughing at us.
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