All bets were off at the Hippodrome casino last night as London’s nerdiest politicos piled into Leicester Square to watch the first For the Many live recording. For those unfamiliar with this Westminster institution, it is nothing but an hour of smut and innuendo masquerading as a political podcast. Carry On Up The Commons, if you will. And hosts Iain Dale and Jacqui Smith were on fine form as they welcomed a rising star into their midst: Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
The stage, we were informed, was where the muscled lotharios of the popular Magic Mike strip show usually gyrate, titillate and stimulate heaving hordes of female admirers. And it was Streeting’s turn to excite and arouse the attendant army of centrist dads as he deployed the deftness of a Chippendale in evading his hosts’ more invasive questions.
With a flash of his wits and a hint of his smile, the Ilford North MP cooly dodged such questions as to whether last night’s menage a trois was his first threesome (it was), if he’d enjoyed Ugandan discussions in parliament (‘No and I wouldn’t want to – have you seen them?’) and which of Rishi, Priti and Boris he’d treat to an ‘Eat Out to Help’ offer (no comment).
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