It’s not often the Prime Minister gets a derisive laugh from the House of Commons for telling them that he had meetings with ministerial colleagues that morning. However No. 10 making a complete hash of a coup against the PM (or was it actually a pre-emptive coup against the Health Secretary?) meant that once again Sir Keir was in the chamber having to answer questions about the chaos caused by his government outside.
The No. 10 debacle is really good stuff
The No. 10 debacle is really good stuff. These people can’t even commit governmental suicide properly. This was the Day of Dupes meets Mean Girls, meets the Chuckle Brothers. Of course it’s only the latest in a string of embarrassments this week. At the start of the session Tory MP and MC Lincoln Jopp begged the Prime Minister never to go away again on a Wednesday after David Lammy’s performance the previous week. It’s probably the most ringing endorsement he’s going to get today.
Jopp also offered the PM a piece of friendly advice following Sir Keir’s tribute to the armed forces: ‘I particularly remember in 1997, in West Africa, where I somehow managed to survive a bloody and violent attempted coup. So if the Prime Minister wants any ideas about how to do that, he only has to ask.’ Starmer, to his credit, laughed at this.
Mrs Badenoch was in a less conciliatory mood. She asked the PM about the toxic culture in No. 10. ‘This is a united team!’ the PM whelped, to roars of laughter from the Tory benches. He had the appearance of an off, meaty blancmange, as if he might dissolve into a pool of grey sludge at any moment.
He wasn’t the only member looking glum. The Labour benches did some statutory required cheers and clucked disapproval but they looked profoundly depressed. All these student union politicians, LinkedIn chimps and lanyardistas who thought governing the country was going to be a doddle are now trapped in a hell entirely of their own making. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
The cabinet looked particularly gaunt and miserable. Rachel Reeves resembled a haunted ventriloquist’s dummy. Shabana Mahmood spent the entire session death-staring the PM. Sir Alan Campbell looked cadaverous. Most hilariously of all, Lammy sat there nodding solemnly, like an undertaker’s dog, when in fact much of the current crisis was his own doing.
Mrs Badenoch continued scoring hits while Sir Keir repeated his claims that all was fine and dandy. ‘Any attack on any member of my cabinet is completely unacceptable.’ However his repeated refusal to express his full confidence in Morgan McSweeney was telling. That said, given that the PM expressing his confidence almost always results in a resignation days or hours later, it seems possible that Sir Keir’s backroom attack dog will live to fight another day.
It is worth noting the improvement in Mrs Badenoch. She has had a string of recent performances where she has got Sir Keir wriggling, squealing and oinking away. Today she was confident and on top of her brief. As the Christmas political bloodbath beckons, it will most likely be on the Labour benches, not the Tory ones. Imagine the surprise if you’d have told someone it would be this way round even six months ago.
Perhaps controversially, I actually don’t think Starmer was the most irritating or pompous man in the House during this session. That accolade goes to the Smarm of Surbiton, Sir Ed Davey. We were treated to yet another bloviating whirlwind of pomposity about America, obviously designed to appeal to the worried wealthy in the Home Counties who make up the Lib Dems’ core demographic. He repeated an increasingly central canard to his party’s deranged obsession with this issue; specifically that Sir Robbie Gibb is some sort of omnipotent Svengali as opposed to the only person in the BBC who has ever expressed a teensy bit of concern about Hamas. He is also trying to make ‘Our BBC’ a thing.
‘We should always bin wet wipes,’ clucked the Prime Minister
Other moments included independent MP Rupert Lowe calling for a referendum on the death penalty. This drew great lamentation in the Chamber – momentarily jolting even Starmer’s lifeless backbenchers from their thousand-yard stares. I am anti-death penalty, but the sheer outrage when someone invoked it was grimly amusing, given not long ago most of them voted for euthanasia.
Nigel Farage asked about the state of the grooming gang inquiry, which No. 10 had teed up with an obviously planted question about Kent County Council from a toadying backbencher. A reminder that what will really have Labour MPs sharpening knives for the PM is their – totally justified – fear that most of them are about to be obliterated by Reform.
There was a glorious moment at the end where a mad woman from the Labour backbenches shared her personal crusade against unflushable wet wipes. ‘We should always bin wet wipes,’ clucked the Prime Minister. I suspect after today’s performance the Labour party will be thinking about how they can do just that.
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