Another week, another paedo. Confronted by this mishap, the nasal knight lost his rag. Kemi Badenoch had already raised it at the start of PMQs. Then boring-snoring Sir Ed Davey of the Lib Dems was rash enough to mention the matter. Things suddenly went all EastEnders.
Sir Keir Starmer started ranting. Pointing. His index finger shook crazily as he brandished it at the impudent Davey. Had he been any closer, I do believe he might have pronged that finger up one of Sir Ed’s nostrils and given it a good rootling, like a chimney brush.
Starmer KC had turned into Sid Vicious. It was like seeing Arthur Negus hurl a priceless jardiniere against the wall, or the Dalai Lama start effing and blinding. Total, mad meltdown.
Sir Keir used to pride himself on his ‘forensic’ coolness. Now he was just blaring abuse, tonsils waggling, throwing his head around so much that if he’d been the chef on The Muppets his toque would have gone whizzing off and landed in the parsnip soup.
The Lib Dems had let down Britain for ‘years and years and years,’ screamed Sir Keir with violent exasperation. ‘He should take accountability and responsibility!!!’ Beside him sat his deputy David Lammy, jaw agape. Eventually bedlam abated and Sir Ed, in a tone of slightly wounded surprise, murmured: ‘I think I touched a raw nerve.’
The scandal in question, since you ask, concerned Matt Doyle, former press secretary to Sir Keir, now Lord Doyle of Great Barford in the County of Bedfordshire. Coronets for the boys. As Mrs Badenoch and Sir Ed noted, No 10 ennobled him even though it knew he campaigned for a Labour politician charged with distributing indecent photographs of a minor (and, ahem, far worse).
Sir Keir snapped that Lord Doyle ‘did not give a full account of his actions’. This was the same line he took in the Mandelson fiasco. Opposition MPs whooped with derision. Labour MPs sat in sticky silence. Sir Keir: ‘I’ll take no lessons from the Tories!’ A cold quietude from his own side.
Goodness, how Labour MPs hated it. Although junior ministers had dotted themselves throughout the backbenches, there was no avoiding the glowers. Tonia Antoniazzi (Lab, Gower), strong on women’s issues, walked out of the chamber, throwing some remark to a sister MP at the side-door as she departed.
She was not alone. Before the end of the session some 30 others drifted away. The same happens in football stadium when the home team is several goals down.
Florence Eshalomi (Lab, Vauxhall), a good churchgoer, rested her chin on one hand. Pam Cox (Lab, Colchester), Catherine West (Lab, Hornsey), Gerald Jones (Lab, Merthyr), Janet Daby (Lab, Lewisham E): they and many more sat there motionless, uncheering.
The only ones I could see yowling support were Gregor Poynton and Mark Ferguson (both Whips, both sitting on the backbenches) and that foghorn from Watford, Matt Turmaine.
Cabinet ministers, arriving beforehand, had been a portrait of unease. Several, behind the Speaker’s chair, hugged and rubbed each other. The only one who looked cheerful was Rachel Reeves, possibly because she is now harder to sack.
It may be instructive that Sir Keir lashed out at Sir Ed rather than at Mrs Badenoch. The Tory leader scares him these days. When she reaches the despatch box there is none of the Labour heckling of old. As she talked about Labour's new crisis, she maintained a level, sober tone.
The man opposite her just raved, wailing about Boris Johnson and accusing Liz Truss of being ‘bonkers’. Mrs Badenoch concluded that Sir Keir was interested in protecting vulnerable women when his own career’s safety was at risk. You could sense Labour women thinking ‘she’s not wrong’.
On Monday night, Labour spinners insisted that a Starmer speech had so impressed his MPs and peers, he was now in the clear. After this PMQs that most evidently is not the case. The threat level remains high, potentially fatal.
