You know how it is. You’ve been back at work for just over two weeks after a six-week break and you’re knackered already. Just not match fit. You could do with another break. Well, tough. Get over yourself. Welcome to the real world. No rest till Christmas.
Just not in Westminster. A blink after the last recess and we’re into another for the conference season. The Lib Dems don’t start their annual bash in Bournemouth until the weekend, but why put MPs through the torment of doing a full week when they could knock off on the Tuesday. Anything to save Rishi Sunak from being embarrassed at prime minister’s questions.
There again, why make MPs do anything at all? For the two days parliament was sitting this week, Tory MPs have been on a one-line whip. Which translates as “Please, please, stay at home. Don’t make trouble by coming in. Enjoy yourself. Put your feet up. Take time to say goodbye to your constituents who you won’t be seeing after the next election.” And almost all have been happy to oblige. After all, it’s not as if the government is actually doing anything. Other than praying for a miracle.
Fair to say the current parliament is a dead zone. So much so that Keir Starmer has spent much of the past week abroad. Last week he was in The Hague visiting Europol. At the weekend he was in Montreal hanging out with the great and the good of the centre-left. And on Tuesday he nipped off to Paris for a coffee with Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace. Just to get to know each other. They’ve both read the latest opinion polls and reckon the Tories are probably toast.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Macron,” said Starmer.
“Vous pouvez call moi Emmanuel.”
“I’ve got you un petit cadeau. An Arsenal shirt.”
“That’s un peu merde. What’s avec le ‘Visit Rwanda’ logo? I bought you some cufflinks.”
And that was about it. They nattered about Donald Trump. Do you think he’ll be re-elected president? Dunno. Possibly? What about you? Dunno. Possibly? They didn’t talk about Brexit. They didn’t talk about Macron being booed at the Rugby World Cup. No point falling out on the first date. Then Macron looked at his watch.
“Let’s call it un jour,” said the president. “I’ve got choses a faire.”
“I haven’t,” said Starmer. Before strolling off to a nice bistro with Rachel Reeves and David Lammy. Time to tuer before heading home on the Eurostar.
Back in Westminster, just a few people stirred. Among them, to everyone’s surprise – including her own – was Claire Coutinho. Claire is the recently appointed energy secretary who channels her inner “less is more” Gwyneth Paltrow. You’d have thought she would be thrilled to have been the first of the 2019 intake to become a full cabinet minister, but she appears to regard the job as a bit of a burden. A bit of a hassle. Too much like hard work.
Coutinho has already passed up two opportunities to make her Commons debut in her new role. Just didn’t fancy it, I guess. Wasn’t ready. An appointment with her wellness guru. But third time lucky, she bothered to show up on the green benches. Quite why was another matter. She didn’t appear to have made any effort to get to grips with any of her departmental brief.
Her main contribution was to declare the contracts for an onshore wind auction to have been a “story of success”. Even her ministerial juniors seated next to her seemed surprised to hear that. God knows what a failure would have looked like. That would have been the auction at which nobody bid because the department had forgotten to factor in inflation and had priced the contracts too low.
Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, sounded almost apologetic as he tried to explain the reality of the situation to Coutinho. Um. It had actually been an embarrassment. Except Claire couldn’t stop herself digging. It had been great that the last auction round had produced no bids, because that meant we could all get terribly excited if someone did actually come forward in the next round. A PR masterstroke on her part. She did herself a favour by saying almost nothing for the rest of the session.
Then came an urgent question on an update on Raac in schools. Two weeks ago, Raac was all the rage. The Commons had been almost full when the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, made a statement about it. The outrage even felt real. But that was then. Now almost no one seems to care. The classroom ceilings can fall in on the little darlings and no one would be too worried. Might even make the kids concentrate in lessons.
Labour’s Bridget Phillipson tried to inject a bit of passion. Keegan had done nothing for four days and then gone on holiday, she exclaimed. But our Gillian wasn’t to be needled. She even got through the brisk half-hour without swearing or calling teachers lazy. Rather, she insisted that in the wider scheme of things she had acted far quicker than some of her other colleagues might. She probably had a point. Even if the bar was low. She concluded by saying most children preferred portable buildings anyway. Hardly an endorsement of the state of most schools.
The railways minister, Huw Merriman, didn’t show up to explain why he had awarded a new contract to Avanti despite them having a terrible track record. He was too busy telling the Poles how to do high-speed rail, the day after the government all but declared the HS2 was a waste of money. You couldn’t make this stuff up. But we did get Michael Gove insisting it was all the Labour council’s fault that Birmingham had gone bankrupt. He didn’t appear to have heard of spending cuts. Or that the council in his own constituency is on the brink.
There was just time for Kemi Badenoch to appear before the business select committee. But not only did she have nothing to say, she didn’t get round to insulting anyone. The only point to her is that she’s rude. That’s her talent. Her USP. That’s what the Tory members love about her. A bland Kemi is a waste of space. No matter. It’s the holidays. Again. No one is watching.
