Hell, the travel chaos, the Tory front bench, was in effect. Ministers clashed for a seat, crammed like unfortunate passengers on a bus change. Connor Burns and Pretty Patel, huddled together in an awkward forced embrace, did their best not to hit each other with their elbows.
Labor benches seemed less crowded – maybe a few were still out picketing? On Tuesday, Arthur Scargill had done a solid job for the Tories by appearing on the RMT picket lines, fresh from his grace and favor at the Barbican apartment and wearing his iconic Battle of Orgreave baseball cap for full brand recognition. Twenty-five Labor MPs followed suit.
But Chris Elmore, who had asked the first question, started with something very personal – Carrie Johnson, this merged FCO work and the mystery of the disappearing news. Did the Prime Minister, he asked, “have he ever considered appointing his current wife to a government post?”
The Tory benches were furious, but the prime minister, blushing for just a moment, returned to his well-oiled formula for repelling difficult questions. Accusing Elmore of dealing with “non-existent jobs in the media”, he threw himself into a filibuster regime, throwing himself into an inappropriate topic about the government’s biggest hits, delivered twice as fast, reminiscent of a modern major general.
He did this in all moments of difficulty, which sometimes meant scattering his words. The boast of “fiscal firepower” has become “physical firepower” – although frankly, the prime minister has never had too many problems on this issue, at least in the stakes of Genghis Khan. Sometimes his words were completely incomprehensible; a series of swallowing turkey noises, highlighted by the strange “bah!”
Keira Starmer had once invested a little well in it. Grant Shaps, he said, was more focused on “working on his spreadsheet tracking the prime minister’s unpopularity” than trying to find a solution to the suspension. His nasal murmur about bankers’ bonuses seemed like a tribute to the Miliband era, but at least it wasn’t entirely lifeless.
The problem for Sir Care was these annoying blows. At the first mention, the rear Tory benches swung like trained seals and pointed to the floor. “Your blows!” they roared. Kate Osborne of Jarrow, a PPS Labor member who ignored the picket ban, called for executive pay and speculated on a general strike. If Starmer had hoped to stay away from the dangers, safely housed in the waiting room, that didn’t help.
“If she wants to support the working people in this country, can I offer her to come down from the picket line!” – the prime minister roared to the maniacal applause of his colleagues. Every mention of strikes drew exclamations of ecstasy from the faithful. So much for the “equalization” that has occurred so many times that the only rational explanation was a lottery among Red Wall MPs who could get the most out of their own (and foreign) speeches. After a tense race, Alex Stafford of Rother Valley took the palm with four “level rises” in one question.
Ian Blackford looked strangely reserved, which was not his style. The SNP spokesman usually prefers to go into fire and brimstone mode at the first hint of scandal – maintaining Westminster’s moral outrage as something of a John Knox costume in recent days. Under normal circumstances, Carriegate would have affected his interest. Yet for some reason – perhaps like Patrick Grady – Blackford murmured an unusually dry question about economic growth and was almost stifled by ridicule.
It was one of those PMQs that left everyone who witnessed to feel a few stupid IQ points to the end. Einstein would become Stephen Fry; Stephen Fry at Forest Gump. As is often the case, the biggest winners were the people who did not get involved.
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