Rayner’s easy ride is over as Tories unveil a new nemesis
Sir Keir was away, off on another of his trips away from the country he so visibly hates. For the man who dreamed of a brave new nation where people get jail time for using memes, or can be transported for vaping, the actual business of the House of Commons is clearly tiresome. This time he’d been delighting world leaders with his airy badinage at the G20: “Do you need more spit on your loafers, President Xi? 我父亲是名工具制造商. Uighur Muslims? Never heard of them.” That sort of thing.
Anyway, this put Big Ange back in the driving seat but with a new opponent. Alex Burghart is the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and was clearly not going to give Ange the cutesy end-of-the-pier show she used to get from Oliver Dowden. He began by simply asking what the Government was going to do about inflation. Ange, so flippant that she barely remembered to welcome him to his place, simply quoted the statistics of the Truss government at him. Burghart was having none of it and scored a delicious blow when he referred to the findings of “real” economists. Rachel Reeves who, with Lucy Powell, was flanking Ange in identical outfits like the twins from The Shining, winced.
Next came the farmers, those inconvenient people who just, you know, provide our food. Did Ange think they’d come to London to thank the Government, asked Burghart? Ange simply reasserted that she believed the Government’s calculations. It didn’t matter that they’d been disproved by the NFU and various expert agencies – Ange had her line and was sticking to it. Reeves could have got a half-cut chimp to throw the stats together on the back of a fag packet and it still wouldn’t have mattered. In fact, for all we know, she did.
Labour’s backbenchers conducted themselves with their usual dripping contempt for the general public. Charm-free area, and fast identifying himself as premier bottom-crawler of the new intake, Torsten Bell yelled “Nonsense!” at the first mention of the farmers’ plight and how many would be affected. Another MP screamed “Did they vote for Brexit?” as if some farmers having a different opinion on the EU justified their bankruptcy and suicides. It is important to remember that many of these MPs are not just stupid, but nasty as well.
“I fink it’s an audaciteh for him to stand there and suggest Labour broke promises.” This shot of Ange’s, delivered in her best not-angry-but-disappointed tone was met with genuine shrieks of laughter in the house. Burghart ended with a list of people Labour were punishing for not voting for them, something his opponent never actually denied.
Other highlights included Lee Anderson suggesting that the Environment Secretary’s claim that he’d met a farmer who supported the inheritance tax changes could only mean that his primary crop was cannabis. There was a reminder of what good, decent backbenchers are for when Labour MP Graham Stringer challenged Ange to condemn what he referred to as “the Stasi-like questioning of Allison Pearson”. Good on Mr Stringer – he got a number of cheers, but sadly few from his side of the House. Ange flustered some platitudes about free speech coming with responsibilities.
Lincoln Jopp closed with a softball question about Spelthorne litter-pickers, a reminder of the glorious ability of the British Parliament to switch between the lofty and mundane in an instant. This was much more Ange’s speed: she even called Mr Jopp her friend. After her evisceration by Burghart it must have felt pleasant to be back on easier ground. Unfortunately for her, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster isn’t going away: clearly Ange’s easy-riding days are over.