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Hyena agenda12/13/2023 “Another one lost, Keir!”Īnother catchphrase, more cheers, more sound and fury signifying nothing. “He isn’t just for the free movement of people, he’s for the free movement of principles,” he said. Sunak fared better on the offensive, concluding with a pointed dig at Starmer’s chameleon approach to Brexit, tuition fees and much else. Starmer hushed the Commons with the tragic case of a young woman who had died while waiting for an ambulance. Several backbenchers gave Sadiq Khan a deserved booting for apparently manipulating the data to clobber London drivers with the ultra-low emissions zone.īoth sides had their high points, enough for either one to claim victory. A lone pop of excitement came from Alicia Kearns, perched imperiously on one of the upper benches in a bright red silk number worthy of a medieval jousting tournament. The Honourable Members slouched in their seats and scrolled through Twitter. Was Scotland “on a slippery slope from devolution to direct rule?” he asked dramatically. He accused the Government of “stoking culture wars” - which, coming from the SNP, was a bit like hearing a fox expressing outrage about chicken welfare. Stephen Flynn, apparently still smarting from the Government's veto of the Scotland gender recognition Bill 24 hours earlier, looked even dourer than usual – resembling a disgruntled boiled egg. “I notice the one place he didn’t mention was Wales,” he said silkily, triggering hyena-like squawks from the opposition. They shouted it so many times, there were shades of Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons: “But for Wales, Richard?”Įventually, the PM followed the hecklers’ lead. “Wales! Wales!” they crowed, insistent that things are equally appalling everywhere.Īs Starmer described the condition of a heart attack victim waiting for an ambulance, “Wales!” came the inevitable retort. The Tory faithful seized on this as a winner. One part of the country he hadn’t mentioned was Labour-controlled Wales - where, we must remember, standards are even worse than in England. In Plymouth, Northampton and Peterborough, paramedics permanently procrastinate. “If someone calls 999 now, when would the PM expect an ambulance to arrive?” He repeated this formula for various marginal seats. “Well done!” yelled a rapier wit on the Conservative benches. Sir Keir’s opening gambit, listing average delays for 999 calls around the country in real time, was immediately derailed by heckling. If only our politicians would go on strike. “Union paymasters!” plays “same old Tories!” – yet nothing happens and nobody wins. The PM’s “why won’t he support our minimum safety legislation?” plays the leader of the opposition’s “when will he admit the NHS is in crisis?” Look below the surface however, and the weekly knockabout is closer to trench warfare - mired in rhetorical sludge, with little ground gained or lost from one session to the next.Įven by its usual standards, Wednesday’s session was an exceptionally low wattage dust-up, like a game of rock, paper, scissors where nothing trumps anything else. To the untrained eye, PMQs can seem like a frenetic affair - heckles, excitable roaring worthy of a lion’s cage, irritable interventions from the Speaker, a few “winning” one-liners.
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