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You know it’s going to be a good PMQs when it opens with Giles Watling, the thespian MP for Clacton. The r’s in “Honourable Friend” took a rolling, which they can’t have seen for some time; the word “inflation” was declaimed as if it were the name of a lesser character in Titus Andronicus.
“Today’s figures show that our plan is working” was the Prime Minister’s stock “I hope this email finds you well” response – if it is, then someone should tell the polls, his party and his face. Oh dear, the PM’s glower was back: Banquo Sunak returned to haunt the feast!
Sir Keir clearly sensed this and launched into a bloviation about the failures of the last decade or so, culminating in demanding why the PM was scared of an election. Sunak jolted up – he’d prepared properly for this one – “I thought he’d be grateful – he’s now actually got time to come up with a plan for Britain.”
The Labour leader, slumped back on his bench at an angle, wobbled his head. He looked like a dropped Mr Whippy. “We’re all looking forward to finally seeing it!” ended the PM with a big grin: I bite my carefully manicured thumb at you sir.
“Oh we’re ready. Just call it.” Sir Keir weirdly tried to sound a bit “street” when he did this. We’d moved from Mr Watling’s stentorian Titus to a community theatre beat version of Twelfth Night. After allowing his own MPs to screech “just call it” for a bit, Sir Keir quickly returned to his usual mode of delivery; through his nose.
Clearly embarrassed by his lapse into Straight Outta Compton, Sir Keir reached for theatrical metaphors, speaking of the “tragedy” of the PM’s position on the Rwanda policy with “his own MPs holding the sword of Damocles above his head. Literally in the case of the Leader of the House”.
This reference to Penny Morduant’s rumoured leadership ambitions elicited an ice-cold stare from the MP for Portsmouth North. The lady doth not protest at all: she simply withers with a contemptuous flash of the eyes.
The pseudish badinage continued. The PM said Sir Keir wanted to be a lawyer for criminals, Sir Keir made some lame joke about helicopters. It wasn’t top shelf stuff to be honest: more Henry VI part II than Hamlet.
In his final speech, Sir Keir pretended to address the Tory party on behalf of Banquo Sunak: “To say to them what he wishes he could.” How magnanimous of him. He accused them of having no plan and wasting people’s time, which was admittedly a bit rich coming from someone with a policy platform about as well fleshed out as Yorick’s skull.
The old ham (which is also what it looks like Sir Keir is made out of these days) sat down and the PM went on his counter -attack. The problem was that once again it consisted of him suggesting that the party, who’ve been in power for 14 years, were the candidates of vitality and change. Audiences will only swallow so much.
Light relief from the Two Gentlemen of Westminster was provided by Stephen Flynn, the porter of hell gate. Well, technically the leader of the SNP in Westminster but one suspects the job satisfaction and time spent with dubious characters are pretty much the same.
The public, Mr Flynn was sure, desired that the all-too-similar two main parties be better strangers. “Which of the born-again Thatcherites on Labour’s front bench would be best suited to replace him as leader?” he asked, to the first genuine laugh of the afternoon, including one from Rishi Sunak. To elicit one of those these days is impressive indeed.
For all the stagecraft we were no closer to finding out when the parties will finally go unto the breach once more. That election seems destined to be tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Duelling party leaders lurch from Shakespeare to Straight Outta Compton
House of Commons becomes the site of tragedy as Starmer reaches for theatrical metaphors and Banquo Sunak returns to haunt the feast