Mr Corbyn has spent a week shuddering at goblins that don’t exist. At least outside his head. But he wants his posse of demons to exist in our heads too. So he keeps conjuring them up. He says Mrs May is about to turn Britain into ‘an offshore tax haven.’ Being a Puritan he hasn’t noticed that this has an attractive, Hefner-ish feel. It suggests white sands and azure waves, the tinkling of steel-drums, and bottles of Red Stripe being served at ten cents a time by pouting lovelies straining out of their bra-cups.
To be fair, Corbyn’s team of wordsmiths have spotted the problem. So the boss has been given a tastier version which he deployed at PMQs. Mrs May is about to make us ‘a bargain basement tax haven off the shores of Europe.’ But it still sounds pretty peachy. ‘Bargain basement’ suggests low prices, and ‘off the shores of Europe’ has a restful late-August feel. They’re trying to terrify us with ‘dance, Provencal song and sunburnt mirth.’. This is hopeless. It’s nearly as bad as last week’s attempt to slur Mrs May as ‘the Irony Lady.’ In what political universe could ‘irony’ be a failing? History contains no record of a leader driven from office because their paradoxical and playfully Wildean approach to policy drove the voters nuts.
Corbo put in one of his barmiest and most overheated performances ever. By the end he was ranting like an out-of-control strimmer. Having convinced himself that Mrs May is a criminal hellbent on sabotage he shrieked at her to ‘withdraw her threats to destroy the social structure of this country.’
Andy Slaughter created the day’s most memorable moment. The Fulham MP is endowed with more than his share of teeth, and less than his share of brains, but he’s very good at what he does: turning solutions into problems. He spoke warmly of the voters of west London who are, of course, the most sophisticated electorate in the world because they sent him to parliament. But they doubt Mrs May’s ability to treat successfully with Brussels. So he wants a parliamentary veto on any Brexit deal. And if the veto is implemented he wants to create a further snag. Referendum Two. This was truly awful. A wintry exhalation, an ashen sigh, like the shudder of an expiring elephant, shimmered across the chamber as MPs realised what he’d said.
John Baron came to PMQs to display his fine principles and his brand new pin-stripe suit. We got a handsome view of both. He asked the PM to guarantee the residency rights of EU citizens in advance of the Brexit talks. ‘Take the moral high ground’, he enthused. Then he added a curious footnote. ‘We can always return to the issue of non-reciprocation later.’ Meaning: offer your solemn word as a sign of good faith then break it as soon as things get tricky. It seems odd to find an MP who defines manipulative duplicity as ‘the moral high ground.’ Or maybe not.
Mrs May’s upcoming head-to-head with the US president makes her the Second Most Important Person In The World – this week, anyway. And any MP who can get a question onto her order paper must be the Third Most Important Person. There were suggestions galore. Climate change. Food hygiene. Chicken hormones. The wall was mentioned. As was the president’s questionable attitude to females and foreigners. But Trump can’t be that much of a misogynistic xenophobe. He’s already conferred US citizenship on at least two migrant women by marrying them. Perhaps they’ll be more to come.
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