Wes Streeting and his young devotees had plonked themselves at the far end of the chamber, an area normally occupied by non-entities.
In their centre, looking a little plumper and more important than the rest, sat Wes. Our would-be PM had come to make his big resignation speech.
A nation watched agog, eager to learn why this suntanned princeling quit a newish government and plunged it into such decline. What dirt would he disclose on the Starmerites? On what mighty point of principle had he broken his spear and retreated to his pavilion in displeasure?
We were not told.
As leadership stump speeches go, it was fair enough. As an explanation of casus belli, indeed as an act of political drama, it was a middler. Neither bad nor good. Not even a curate’s boiled egg.
He spoke it fluently enough. But ‘it’ was merely 19 minutes of platitudes and formulaic cadences. There was no killer phrase. No scorching denunciation of explicit failure. Maybe the only casus belli all along was Wes’s impatient ambition.
He and his little flock – there were about 25 of them – had arrived in the chamber at the start of the parliamentary day, being there for Science questions (snoozerama) and PMQs.
When Sir Keir Starmer entered, many Labour MPs cheered. Team Wes kept quiet.
Former health secretary Wes Streeting in his first Commons speech since quitting cabinet
PMQs came and went. Sir Keir did rather well, a man liberated by impending defenestration. He has possibly never enjoyed being prime minister.
A couple of good moments for the nasal knight. One was when he had to admit he had erred in welcoming a trade deal with North Korea. He had meant South. This was corrected with charm and humour.
Then that Green woman from Gorton and Denton moaned about Westminster’s boozing culture.
Sir Keir was less appalled by the thought of people enjoying a snifter; but he did know that the Greens thought their leader walked on water, whereas in fact he merely lived on water (a canal boat) and didn’t pay his council tax.
This barb won great hoots on all sides except for the Greens – and a few of Wes’s vestal virgins.
Hours passed. That garrulous windsock Tan Dhesi (Lab, Slough) unburdened himself of a speech. Wes’s eyes bored into the middle-distance. You could sense him thinking ‘what have I done?’
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Eventually we reached the moment, in the main debate, for Mr Streeting’s speech. To his left sat Rosie Wrighting (Lab, Kettering – at best a 3rd XI player). On the other side he had Jess Phillips, her usual sunny presence. Another of the Streeting munchkins was Joe Morris, the Hexham Mumbler. Dynamic fizzer is not quite the term.
Mr Streeting opened with self-compliments, noting all the things he had done for the National Health Service. Labour was in ‘the fight of our lives against nationalism’ and the fight was at present being lost. He deplored ‘the politics of division’. This from a figure of such unity!
John Healey, Defence Secretary, sat on the front bench doing some paperwork. Al Carns, another defence minister who fancies his chances of becoming Labour leader, lurked by the back doors, scrolling on his mobile.
Mr Streeting praised Rachel Reeves for her economic genius, or something like that. He made warmish mention of Andy Burnham. There was even a compliment, on foreign policy, for Sir Keir. He said ‘we can and must do better’ but there was no prospectus for change.
So what was it all about? Why did he cause such upheaval last week? And upheaval it has caused, demonstrably.
At the end of PMQs there was an acidic moment between the Chief Whip, Jonathan Reynolds, and Karl Turner (Hull E). Mr Turner was recently suspended from the party for criticising the jury-trials changes. He claimed to have been smeared by ‘the lads in No 10’.
As he walked past the Chief Whip afterwards, Mr Reynolds shouted ‘that was disgraceful!’ Had David Lammy not interposed his slender frame, one dreads to think what might have ensued.
