Cameron is away in Ankara. His mission is to annoy the Germans by inviting Turkey to join the EU as soon as possible. It all sounds like fun. Let’s hope the Turks know they’re being used as pawns in a much bigger game. His absence left Deputy Clegg facing Deputy Harman at PMQs.
Clegg’s chief gift at the dispatch-box is for coining and distributing insults. It’s not a winning talent though, and his manner is far too prickly for national leadership. His attractive looks, posh schooling and agile tongue should have resolved themselves into something softer and more generous. Yet he still comes across as a Leninist crusty who happens to have been mellowed by a nice salary, a staff car and a foxy wife.
He got so riled by Harman that his hair nearly caught fire. She accused him of abusing women, of shriving their pensions, of clobbering their tax credits and of closing down sex discrimination tribunals. All this while he hogged the cabinet table for himself and his sexist cronies.
Clegg retaliated with a dose of long-fermented poison. He called Labour two-faced and amnesiac. ‘Living in cloud-cuckoo land. The Lance Armstrong of British politics.’
The toxicity got stronger. He said Labour had destroyed manufacturing jobs at record speeds. And, in Andy Burnham, the party boasted the only UK citizen ever to privatise an NHS hospital.
Burnham squirmed and hopped in his seat like a cattle-prodded mongoose. Clegg cashed in on this by clarifying the accusation: Hinchingbrooke Hospital. He gave the impression that Burnham had personally auctioned the place off to asset-strippers while their idling Ferraris chugged and smoked in parking spaces reserved for lame pregnant diabetics.
Later Burnham raised a point of order and asked Bercow to haul Clegg back to ‘correct the record’. Request denied.
Backbenchers tried to get Clegg to forge policy on the hoof. Stephen Hammond, from palatial Wimbledon, asked him to disavow the mansion tax. Stuff it, said Clegg. Fairly politely.
Gordon Banks wanted Clegg to rewrite the constitution, ‘in the big seat’, and extend the franchise to 16 year olds. Is that wise? Children of those tender and innocent years still have to ask their parents to buy them Special Brew and Marlboro. Should we really trust them to appoint a government? Apparently so. And it’s been LibDem policy for years, said Clegg proudly.
Silly Question of the Day goes to Ben Bradshaw. The Exeter MP accused Clegg of endangering the lives of fat smokers in the south-west. This is rather stretching the point. Devon is where Cream Teas come from and where most of their victims are buried. So the local health supremos are cracking down on anyone addicted to jam, milk, sugar, butter, scones and those nice juicy blackcurrants that sometimes get a bit burnt on their outsides. Yummy. Nicotine users are also in their sights. The new health rules would deny fag-junkie Clegg an allocation of slab-time in an Exeter clinic if he needed surgery. Same would apply to Eric Pickles, said Bradshaw, ‘because of his size’.
Rather harsh, said Clegg. But the campaign seems to be working. Slimline Bradshaw clearly keeps himself in shape so he can jump the queue ahead of his wheezier and wobblier electors whose ciggie taxes and beer duty pay his salary.
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