The Commons was full for the start of the King’s Speech debate. Mutinous Wes was on the government front bench, possibly one final time.
What a gift to Mrs B. She noted that the Health Secretary had ‘been a bit distracted recently’.
The House mooed its amusement but Wes gave Kemi some lip. ‘Why don’t you just do your job?’ continued Mrs B, hooking an eyebrow. ‘Do your job!’ She gave that last word a twist of the kebab skewer.
Mr Streeting kept muttering back at her. Mrs Badenoch spotted this, slid her eyes to the right and filleted him. ‘There’s no point giving me dirty looks,’ she said. ‘We all know what he’s been up to!’
There was something about the way she said it, making Mr Streeting’s furtive activities sound almost pornographic, that just made the House laugh. Even Sir Keir Starmer. The PM looked away, merriment brimming within him, until out it popped: A yelp of helpless mirth, and all at poor Wes’s cost.
There had been a weird atmosphere at Westminster. The Commons felt becalmed, Labour MPs mute with despair that Sir Keir still hadn’t been bumped off. This death scene is being dragged out like something from a Wagner opera.
State openings are always a touch unreal, what with the horse-drawn coaches, plume-helmeted soldiers in breastplates, flunkeys in heraldic tabards and Lord Alli in ermine. This time there was an extra layer of make-believe: We were being asked to ignore the nasal knight’s mortal wounds.
Any new legislative programme was nuts if the Government was about to plop inwards like an under-baked soufflé. Yet on sailed the ship of state, oblivious to political reality.
Mrs Badenoch began with deadly softness, remarking on ‘the most extraordinary backdrop’ to a State Opening at which no one had known whether there would actually be a PM in place
Mutinous Wes was on the government front bench, possibly one final time. He kept muttering back at Mrs Badenoch, who slid her eyes to the right and filleted him
Did Kemi Badenoch outshine Keir Starmer at PMQs?
Mrs Badenoch began with deadly softness, remarking on ‘the most extraordinary backdrop’ to a State Opening at which no one had known whether there would actually be a PM still in place. A Labour voice shouted: ‘It certainly isn’t you!’ The jibe flopped. Other government backbenchers were hypnotised by Mrs Badenoch. That smoky voice. The lilac dress. Their eyeballs whirlpooled. Their shoulders sagged.
Politicians on the cusp of a big decision are usually perky. Mr Streeting looked dented, rueful, even recently tearful. He tried to chat to the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, but scary Bridget curled her lips and spat back a couple of words before whipping out her mobile to start scrolling. A word much used by Roy Jenkins came to mind. Rancour.
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The King’s visit to America had been a wow. Mrs Badenoch reminded the House that certain politicians had wanted the visit cancelled to snub Trump. ‘Thank goodness,’ she said, ‘no one listens to the leader of the Liberal Democrats.’ That drew as many cheers from Labour as from the Tories. Mind you, some Labour people also laughed openly when Mrs B took the rise out of Sir Keir’s incompetence. They enjoyed, too, her putdown of their jowly dowager of dudgeon, Dame Emily Thornberry. ‘Oooh, I’m not done yet,’ gurgled Kemi, and Dame Emily pouted like a turbot.
Rachel Reeves was a headache on legs. Beyond her sat Cabinet ministers Yvette Cooper, Emma Reynolds and Lisa Nandy. They watched Sir Keir and the three of them had their lips sucked in, worrying, willing him on. How did he do? By his own standards, not so badly. But it is too late. Labour’s backbenchers had their arms crossed. The only ones bright-eyed were three new ministers, beneficiaries of the resignations. Sir Keir claimed he was the man to ‘tear down the status quo’. A Tory heckler: ‘You are the status quo.’ In the Lords chamber earlier there had been more of this smell of decay.
The hereditary peers had gone and in their place we had life peers taking selfies and chewing gum. Good grief, even the Papal Nuncio, sitting in the diplomats’ enclosure, was chewing something. With the new Pope an American, perhaps it was pink bubble gum.
Few tiaras twinkled under the lights. Attendance was slight. Astonishing. The old House of Lords was seldom less than choc-a-bloc for State Openings. This time they had to persuade peers to spread out and fill benches in the middle of the chamber, to make it look full for TV. Socialism wrecks everything it tries to change.
Lady Butler-Sloss, an ancient legal buzzard, was on her tablet computer with the volume turned high. She had to be told to put it away before the King arrived. His Majesty was obliged to read the pointless speech and utter words such as ‘at pace’. The Marchioness of Landsdowne, companion of the Queen, ground her teeth, as stoical as an early Christian martyr.
Back in the Commons the Speaker called Sir Ed Davey to make his speech. People fled for the exits, among them Wes Streeting. Cabinet colleagues ignored him. The only person to offer him a smile? One of the doorkeepers.
