First PMQs for Sir Keir Starmer. The House hushed, its galleries and gangways crammed. Reporters craned forward in their eyries, sucking cheap pens as they awaited il grande momento.
Seconds before noon, enter Sir Keir to Labour backbench screams led by Andrew Gwynne (who has just been given a ministerial job). Westminster’s new champ waddled to his place. The eyes of Johanna Baxter, a union grandee who is now Labour MP for Paisley, gleamed in adoration, gobstoppers cut from topaz. And then, after a deep intake of breath, the new PM uttered the famous words: ‘This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House I shall have further such meetings today.’
With his tin ear, mind you, he went and mucked about with the cherished rhythm and inserted a Soviet tractor-factory phrase about those ministers discussing the ‘change’ for which the country had ‘decisively voted’.
This was a comatose Commons. Yawns started to ricochet around the chamber, writes Quentin Letts
All the same, a milestone. So was it a thrill? Did history throb between our thighs? If only. The nasal knight’s debut was a dud. An anticlimax. As they say at the fish counter in Morrisons, a damp squid. Greater excitement might have been had watching an agave flower in the Mexican desert.
PMQs, at the dawn of this allegedly sun-dappled age, was turned into a pulverising, soul-sapping, eyeball-bruising bore. Any West End musical making such a glutinous start would soon be laying off the hoofers.
Labour MPs were passive. Hardly any of them bobbed up and down, hoping to catch the Speaker’s eye. None of the seven rebels just suspended from their party was to be seen.
This was a comatose Commons. Yawns started to ricochet around the chamber. Paul Waugh (Lab, Rochdale) wore the dazed stare of a stunned hogget. One of the ushers started chewing his clipboard. Gareth Snell (Lab, Stoke C) stretched out his string-bean legs and onlookers recoiled from his blue novelty socks and revolting yellow shoes.
Wes Streeting, Health Secretary, did not once alter a supercilious smile he had smeared across his chops. Could have been Joe Biden having one of his seizures. Quick, someone reboot Wes!
The only sport to be had was a Carry On cameo further along the front bench. Transport Secretary Louise Haigh (she’s the one with magenta hair) was in a joltingly low-cut top and her neighbours Ed Miliband and Jonathan Reynolds, being modern men, knew they mustn’t gawp. Ed Mil’ cast up at the press gallery at one point. He was cross-eyed. Mr Reynolds was less successful in averting his gaze. Off to Siberia for him.
Rishi Sunak was again in good-loser mode. This may be statesmanlike but it is not what parliamentary combat requires. Rishi wished luck to our team at the Olympics but added, ‘I’m probably not the first person they want to hear advice from on how to win’. Aw, went the House.
Half the fun in booting politicians out of power is in seeing their tooth-sucking fury afterwards. The country may feel cheated.
Rishi Sunak was again in good-loser mode. This may be statesmanlike but it is not what parliamentary combat requires
An early question went to Kim Leadbeater (Lab, Spen Valley), who praised Sir Keir for making ‘such a positive start’. She knew this made her sound like a greaser and laughed, as did Tories. Sir Keir did not get the joke. He accepted the sycophancy as his entitlement. Ms Leadbeater is sister of the late Jo Cox and we learned that her parents were in attendance. Ms Leadbetter blinked back a tear.
That pious archdeacon Sir Edward Davey, leader of the Lib Dems, rose. The House groaned. The Scots Nats’ Stephen Flynn was much better, praising Sir Keir for ‘ending Tory rule’. Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Con, Wetherby & Easingwold): ‘And yours!’ Mr Flynn, whose party indeed had a tremendous wipeout at the election, accepted the heckle with a dazzling smile.
But the rest of it, oh baby, was agonising, dullsville, nearly North Korean in its joylessness. Starmer is the Human Gluepot. It could be a long, long ten years.