A rule of thumb. When you’re in a hole, it’s generally best to stop digging. So after a spectacular display of pompous self-indulgence and partisan politics from MPs of all parties during an opposition day debate on Gaza the night before, the least you might have expected was a little contrition on Thursday morning. A walk of shame into the Commons. MPs trying not to catch one another’s eyes. We’ve all had a drink …
And it all started off quite well during culture departmental questions. Everyone was determined not to mention the war. No, not that one in the Middle East. The one that had been fought across the dispatch box. The one that MPs were really bothered about. The speaker was also in his chair. Everyone wanted to pretend everything was normal. “Yes, Mr Speaker; no, Mr Speaker.” The only hint that anything was amiss was the excessive politeness.
The tip-toeing continued through two urgent questions. The junior business minister Kevin Hollinrake bowing and scraping so low as he suggested Labour’s Kevan Jones knew far more about the Horizon Post Office scandal than he did. After the second UQ, on the government’s decision to cut funding to an inter-faith group – no one dared to point out the irony in the timing of this – Lindsay Hoyle made his excuses and left. It had been a long two hours for him. Exhausting.
So it was left to the shadow leader of the house, Lucy Powell, to mention the elephant in the room during business questions. Lucy was never a prize student at charm school. She finds it easier to make enemies than friends. There is a brusqueness to her. An awkwardness she can’t quite shake off. But she wanted to try to make amends for Wednesday’s fiasco. An olive twig. If not a branch.
It was like this, she said. She accepted that Labour hadn’t exactly covered itself in glory. The party had been in a hole over the Gaza vote and had talked the speaker into changing the parliamentary procedures to get around it. The sort of thing any party would do in a similar situation. They could hardly be blamed for trying it on.
But then no one was totally guilt-free. The Scottish National party had chosen the Gaza motion as much to embarrass Labour as anything else. It wasn’t as if the result of the vote would make a blind bit of difference to Israel or Hamas. And the Tories were in it up to their neck. They had tabled their own amendment that was almost identical to Labour’s purely as a wrecking motion and had been furious to be outmanoeuvred. They had then got panicked about losing their vote and had thrown their toys out the pram and walked out. Cue chaos.
Powell paused, looked up from her script and made this offer. How about everyone owned up to their own part in the humiliation of the vanities? No need to make a big deal about it. Don’t worry about the embarrassing details. Just mumble something vaguely apologetic. Miss Otis Regrets. Enough to give the public the impression that MPs had a few basic signs of emotional intelligence. Then we could all move on. Pretend it had never happened.
This sounded like a decent offer. Only not to the Commons leader, Penny Mordaunt. A walking disaster of emotional stupidity. Not to mention brazen dishonesty. A woman incapable of recognising the most basic truths. Who thinks that her brief cameo at the coronation has given her iconic status. A Britannia for the 21st century.
Planet Earth to Penny. Planet Earth to Penny. Is there anyone there? Apparently not. All you did was carry a sword for a while. OK, you did it well. But it wasn’t that hard. You can’t go on expecting the rest of us to thank you for ever. Yet Penny is in Penny World. Seldom has any woman taken herself quite so seriously. Apart from Liz Truss, possibly. And just as deranged. Of all the days to launch your latest leadership bid, this was not the one. Not least because she’ll be lucky to keep her seat at the next election.
Penny was all ice. The theatrical fury of the intellectually compromised. Unable to see that putting all the blame on to Labour and exonerating Hoyle was an untenable position. The speaker is not without agency. Worse, she had the nerve to pretend that all she cared about was the little people.
The rights of the SNP. Mordaunt has never cared about the SNP. Walking out before the vote was all about creating a diversion away from a possible defeat for the government. Nothing more, nothing less. To pretend otherwise was an insult to the country. At a time when people were hoping for something better from their MPs, Penny chose to kick them in the teeth again. As for parliamentary conventions? She has never cared for them either. Anyone remember the prorogation? Mordaunt would rather you didn’t. Though she was a fan at the time.
To their credit, Penny’s preening display of sanctimony was too much for many of her Tory MPs. It’s hard to imagine there ever being a time and place for such self-indulgent denial, but this certainly wasn’t it. Most chose to ignore her. To distance themselves from her by refusing to pander to her hauteur. Some took her on. None better than Mark Francois. Not a sentence I would ever imagine writing.
Francois is often a purple ball of inchoate anger. Seething at a world he doesn’t understand. That refuses to bend to his will. On Thursday, the storm clouds had temporarily parted. No one came out well from the Gaza omnishambles. No one. That was directed pointedly at Penny. Nor was everyone perfect. Hoyle had admitted his mistake. Now was the time for forgiveness. Magnanimity. A time of grace.
Not for the SNP’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn. He was going to pursue this one to the ends of the earth. Lindsay was guilty of the greatest possible sin. Crimes against the SNP. Flynn would be happy to take part in the firing squad. Though you might have thought he could have granted a royal pardon. The SNP was coming out of this one smelling of roses. With another opposition day debate in the bag.
Then Hoyle himself intervened. Again he fessed up. He had made a mistake. He was sorry. He wished it had turned out otherwise. He hadn’t been nobbled by the Labour heavies. It had been the threat of violence to MPs. He couldn’t live with another phone call saying a friend had been murdered.
Penny grunted. She wasn’t happy. Not ready to think through the implications of parliamentary democracy being undermined by terror groups. She tried to sound understanding but she spat out the words as if she had swallowed a wasp. Lindsay had been weak. Weak, I tell you. She would never have given in. Some things were worth dying for. And Erskine May was one of them.
