It was with the greatest difficulty that I persuaded the Editorial Board (in this massive global organisation of 1) not to make the pic of the PM with his head in his hands at PMQs the photo lead today. It’s an Open Goal Keir! Open Goal. No-one cares. Starmer II: the Caretaker Years has opened to general “meh.”
Look. We know. Rooms do not light up at news of the PMs arrival. More enthusiasm is evinced by the opening of most crisp packets (cheese & onion excepted, because, really, cheese & onion, get a grip.) But the routine deployment of:
1) It’s not my fault, it woz those evil Tories wot did it
2) Oh no, you’re wrong, it’s not my responsibility, that’s the assistant under-secretary of state’s job
3) You haven’t even read the statute! Paragraph 27b1 part 3 clearly says that it’s a reserved matter
4) You have no idea how hard it is being PM – the President told me I was doing a great job too
are just NOT zingers. Take some responsibility man, make some decisions, face down the delusional, dogmatist you appointed as Secretary of State for Energy and impose some order. Or go and weed your garden.
Sorry. Got that off the TWOP chest at least. Decent, deeply boring guy well out of his depth.
In contrast Mrs Badenoch brought some energy to the room. Still faux bemused by the PM’s failure to answer any one of her six questions last week, LoTO chose to open, not with Morgan McSweeney’s stolen government mobile phone and the lost WhatsAppery with Friend Pete, but instead trained her fire on HMG’s hopelessly illogical refusal to countenance opening the spigots of North Sea oil and gas by allowing new drilling in the Jackdaw and Rosebank gas fields and instead preferring to pay Norway to bring the energy from these and most other fields ashore.
Sir Keir had an answer for this childish misunderstanding: it’s not his decision, he’s only Prime Minister! That clever chap he appointed as some mad acronym SosES&NZ, that nice David Milliband’s brother, has it ALL under control and will say “No Way” shortly. This of course confirms what the whole chamber already suspected: Sir Keir has not read the Ladybird “How to be Prime Minister” guide as yet.
There was a rare Guest Star moment when Nigel Farage (Clacton, Reform) asked the PM a question. Unsurprisingly this was dedicated to immigration and asking HMG what their “Plan B” for stemming the tide of illegal immigration might be. Just as unsurprisingly, Sir Keir did not come even close to answering this question or explaining the government’s strategy to combat “the boats.” It’s almost surprising that Mr Farage seems pained and disappointed that the PM will not answer a question. Still, nice to see the old codger livening the place up a bit. (Not for long as he obviously had other more important place to be…)
Tuesday 24th March
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West & Pudsey, Labour) Chancellor came to the House to set out how the Government would help people who faced increased energy bills as a result of disruption caused by the war in Iran, but she could have stopped at 12:35: 07, having said “The full economic impact of the war remains uncertain, but it makes our economic plan more important.”
Basically, it will be something and a really, really big deal that we haven’t worked out yet, but it will have to be concentrated on the poorest households, because, well, there isn’t any money.
Fear not, however, Rache is working on it (slowly) and will come forward with a plan at a later date. The only clear thing the “Chancellor” re-announced was that HMG remains myopically dedicated to developing renewable energy rather than bringing any new North Sea oil or gas capacity onstream. Because, well, we’d prefer to leave that to the Norwegians really wouldn’t we? It makes Islington Tuesday-night dinner parties so much easier after all. Useless.
Monday 23rd March
At the Liaison Committee in the Grimond Room the PM warned MPs not to expect a quick end to the US-Israeli war in Iran. Bernard Jenkin (Conservative) seemed to get under the PM’s (quite thin) skin on defence spending, Bernard asked why the UK had been so unprepared to defend Cyprus as the decision to send HMS Dragon in response to a Hezbollah missile attack demonstrated that HMG had not made the right decisions at the right time. The PM blathered on about it all being the fault of previous Governments, a line that simply will no longer wash.
It seemed an odd (if normal) prioritisation of Commons business for the Government statement by Dan Jarvis (Barnsley North, Labour) Security Minister, on the arson attack on the Hatzola (https://hatzola.org/) ambulances in Golders Green not to come until 5pm, but there was outrage from MPs across the spectrum in response to the antisemitic arson attack.
In a statement on the Middle East John Healey (Rawmarsh & Conisbrough, Labour) Defence, announced that HMS Dragon had arrived on station in the Eastern Med on Monday and would begin to be integrated in to the defence of Cyprus. While welcome, this suggests that the destroyer took 13 days to travel 3,000nm, which suggests an average speed of 10knots. No hurry?
Thursday 19th March
Yvette Cooper (Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, Labour) Foreign Secretary, took the opportunity of a lightly attended Thursday Commons chamber (~30 Members) to set out how HMG proposed to reduce International Aid in the contextof the need to increase UK Defence spending.
The Foreign Secretary said that the UK would try to shield spending on education for women and girls, but now has to focus on countries with significant humanitarian crises: Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan and Lebanon. No-one seemed terribly convinced.
Text of Foreign Secretary’s Oral Statement.
With the House rising for Easter on Thursday 26th March and with only the Sixth Report of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on coastal erosion and some Backbench business probably not delaying Members’ headlong rush to their holidays constituencies tonight, the next Commons Weekly will not land until Wednesday 15th April. Stop up those tears! However, this may afford the opportunity for a piece on the dire state of this Government’s question-answering and some “wither the House?” type rumination before then. Travel to Dubai being so sketchy in the light of the Iranian War, one wonders how many Members will actually spend Easter in their constituencies? (A rhetorical question.)
Thank you for reading and please check out our instagram @theworldofukpolitics,
Alex
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