With the country looking forward to Rachel Reeves’s big moment next week – in much the same way you would look forward to root canal treatment or a trepanning – it was no surprise that this week’s PMQs focused on tax and leaks. That the government seems to conduct policy formulation by Chinese Whispers is only half the irritation. The other half is how angry they get when this is pointed out.
The Prime Minister acts genuinely hurt when anyone brings up the actual state of the country
‘Every week she comes along and speculates and distorts,’ yelled Sir Keir when Mrs Badenoch dared mention the disastrous Income Tax U-turn of last week. The Prime Minister acts genuinely hurt when anyone brings up the actual state of the country. I know TS Eliot said that ‘humankind cannot bear much reality’ but the PM takes this to new levels. Presumably, he’s arranged to have all mirrors, shiny metal and polished surfaces removed from Number 10, lest he catch a glimpse of the world reflected in a misplaced spoon.
This doesn’t stop him lecturing of course. When told that the nation’s energy sector leaders referred to him and Ed Miliband in ‘unrepeatable terms’ he assumed his standard hectoring brace position. He actually knew all about the energy sector, he assured Mrs Badenoch, before telling Tory MPs that ‘It’s best to do the detail before you chunter’ which earned him an extended Frankie Howerd-esque ‘ooooooo’ from the Opposition benches.
He snuck in what I suspect is going to be yet another tedious tagline. Like propaganda in the later Soviet Union, the less competent and less economically successful the government becomes, the more it depends on vaunting slogans. He claimed that now was the time to ‘Renew the country with Labour’ which as taglines go is pretty bad; the equivalent of ‘Fireproof your house with a coat of White Spirit’ or ‘Get your DIY done with Peter Sutcliffe’.
We heard another one of these naff slogans which the government seems to believe will do instead of actual policy as he described what the budget next week will achieve: ‘A Britain built for all’. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister’s strangulated pronunciation meant it came out as ‘A Britain belt for Al’. Perhaps he was thinking of all those clothes Lord Alli bought?
All in all, it was like watching an organism suffer necrosis. The Prime Minister comes again and again, and tries to paint a picture of a happy, functional country but with material that increasingly proves that the opposite is the case.
Talking of which, a Labour backbencher did a standard issue Mental ‘Elf speech which ended by asking whether the Prime Minister agreed that ‘Strength as a man means being open about our emotions’. Um, I’m not sure that Sir Keir has ever had trouble showing them, as anyone who’s watched him turn the colour of a Percy Pig as soon as a woman says something he doesn’t like, will doubtless testify.
Elsewhere Kit Malthouse, who plays an emaciated Oliver Hardy to Kim Leadreaper’s Stan Laurel in the farce that is the Assisted Suicide Bill, tried to bind the Prime Minister into making a promise that the House of Lords would be unable to block the legislation as it becomes increasingly clear that it makes a dog’s dinner look like Escoffier’s finest work. Even Sir Keir steered clear of that one.
Lee Anderson accused the government of dog whistling only to be yelled at by Labour backbenchers. He in turn called them gullible. Panto season truly is upon us.
There were the predictable plant questions, about levelling up, about migration and about how wonderful everything is, yet these remaining bottom crawlers aside, Labour MPs look increasingly worn. Next week will only make that worse. Noticeably a number have simply stopped coming to major events like PMQs, presumably because it’s too depressing. Perhaps they will one by one hang up their lanyards and call it a day. Or melt into one big greying mush. Or, even better, disappear up their own fundaments, leaving Rachel and Sir Keir to paint their fantasies alone. Hope springs eternal.
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