It was clearly hot in the House of Commons today. The Lib Dem benches were a sea of pastel colours, light pinks and summer suits. They looked like the LGBTQIA+ sub-committee of the Friends of Glyndebourne. Which, in many ways, they are. Rachel Reeves, in contrast, was wearing severe black, as if she were going to a funeral. Presumably for the economy.<\/p>\n
\nThe picture painted by the PM is of an unrecognisable nation<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Members on the Labour backbenches fanned themselves with order papers and squirmed. Given that these are people who give the impression that they are kept in tanks needing only a coco fibre brick, a heat lamp and the odd handful of dried locusts to keep them going, then it must have been warm.<\/p>\n
A generous explanation of the fever dream which Sir Keir inflicted on the House in his answers at Prime Minister\u2019s Questions would be that the heat had gone to his head. Sadly, however, the picture painted by the PM \u2013 of an unrecognisable nation \u2013 is consistent with the government\u2019s constant and singular inability to realise just how much trouble Britain is in, and just how much its people now hate them.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I wonder which country the Prime Minister thinks he is leading \u2013 Lilliput? Barataria? Oz? Certainly, it isn\u2019t Britain, but rather a Utopia that exists exclusively in his head. In Starmerland, working people are finally able to prosper due to the generous rise in National Insurance placed upon them, businesses are confident, public services are thriving and immigration is a side issue that barely needs to be mentioned.<\/p>\n
The Leader of the Opposition tried to drag the PM into reality,\u00a0quoting rises in unemployment and inflation as well as drops in market confidence. How, she asked, were they going to go back to their constituents and explain what a complete hash they\u2019d made of things?<\/p>\n
Sir Keir actually took this as a spur for confidence. He was looking forward to placating a country poorer and angrier than it\u2019s been in generations with some extra NHS appointment slots, thank you very much. He tried to rouse some cheers from his backbenchers with limited success. Behind him, the bug tank looked glum. Some of them weren\u2019t looking forward to a summer with the electorate at all.<\/p>\n
From the Tory backbenchers came a cricketing theme: Sir Desmond Swayne\u2019s MCC tie shone almost as brightly as his eyes as he directed a furious question about prosecutions of veterans to the PM. Lincoln Jopp asked Sir Keir if he would take some inspiration from the England cricket team and deploy \u2018more pace, less spin\u2019.<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister, who does not strike me as someone you\u2019d want even doing the scoring at a cricket match,\u00a0did not find it funny. \u2018He needs a break\u2019, oinked the PM.<\/p>\n
Then the full horror dawned on me: these people would now be at large. Imagine, feeling into the chest freezer to grab a Cornetto and finding Kim Leadbeater taking her annual cryogenic death rest amongst the Soleros. Or going abroad with the lurking knowledge that your safety there is technically in the hands of David Lammy.<\/p>\n
Or,\u00a0perhaps worst of all,\u00a0going to the beach and finding the Prime Minister himself, fanning his trotters in the gentle sea breeze. Surely, with this high risk of encountering members of the worst cabinet\u200b\u00a0on record, there can only be one piece of advice for the British public: stay indoors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was clearly hot in the House of Commons today. The Lib Dem benches were a sea of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-266786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114863324754771283","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}