QUENTIN LETTS: Welcome back, PM. You didn't miss much, just a mutiny of MPs and a plot by Ange to depose you!
Good Heavens, it was Sir Keir Starmer! The Prime Minister swaggered into the Commons at 11.30am. First time for over a fortnight. He was lucky a clerk didn't ask to check his security pass.
The Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, signalled subtle displeasure at Sir Keir's neglect of the House. He said MPs would be given more leeway in their questions, to allow them to catch up with the absentee.
I hear that on Monday night Sir Lindsay summoned the Cabinet Secretary to his study to tear him off a strip over Sir Keir's scurvy attitude to parliamentary scrutiny. Kemi Badenoch could have said 'Welcome back, stranger, you didn't miss much – just a mutiny among your MPs, a poll saying you're now as popular as the clap and a plot by Angela Rayner to depose you'.
Instead the Conservative leader, who is not excessively endowed in the humour department, came over all jabbery. She shouted that Sir Keir had 'evaded Prime Minister's question time for two weeks' and was now 'irrelevant'.
Aiee, that was ill-judged. You do not have to be Kemi-sceptic to see that even our nasal plodder of a PM is more relevant than she at present. Mrs Badenoch paid for her rant. Sir Keir was able to gloat, no fewer than seven times, that his opponent was 'unserious'. Did she truly mean he should not attend G7 and Nato summits?
Furthermore, should she ever become PM (a possibility he later declared not to exist), the head of Nato would need to hang a sign over her empty seat at the summit table saying 'gone to PMQs'. How the sycophants tinkled with laughter at that. Starmer was at his most patronising.
The chamber was surprisingly unbusy. The Lib Dems were down to seven. Reform MPs were a total no-show. The Tories were sparse and one of them – Mark Pritchard from The Wrekin, Shropshire – was so rude about Mrs Badenoch that he might soon defect.
Sir Keir's parliamentary private secretary, a shrewd lad, leaned forward and muttered something to the Prime Minister when Mr Pritchard was trumpeting.
Sir Keir proceeded to baste Pritchard in warm treacle. The old bloviator loved that.
More interesting than anything on the Opposition benches was the paucity of Labour bodies. Despite doughnutting behind ministers to make TV viewers think it was a big turn-out, there must have been barely a tenth of Labour's contingent on parade.
This was evidence of two things: the size of the Starmer arch-loyalist faction and the much greater number of Labour MPs who are indifferent towards him. Theirs was an ominous absence.
Once Mrs Badenoch had blurted out her 'evading PMQs' line, these Starmer loyalists rose one after another to hail the nasal knight's 'leadership' and to complain that Kemi's remarks were a disgrace.
Such was the consistency of these contributions, it was obvious Labour's Whips were orchestrating them. You just get a Whip to send a job-hungry MP a text message saying 'Here's what to say'. Most of them oblige. It's sickeningly low-grade but it works.
Those applying their suction nozzles to Sir Keir's posterior included: Gemmell (C Ayrshire), Ahmed (Glasgow SW), Bailey (Leyton), Macdonald (Norwich N), McDonald (Stockton N) and Slinger (Rugby) but for sheer, marvel-eyed sycophancy none quite matched a woman from West Bromwich called Coombes.
Whenever the first ministerial shuffle happens it will be a surprise if these virtuosi are not rewarded for their heroic efforts.
Two other things.
First, is Sir Keir's eyesight giving him gyp? He seemed to have new spectacles – they were glinting in a way I had not seen before – and, as happens occasionally, he asked for his speech to be raised on a special platform which was placed atop the despatch box. This did not prevent him from misreading some of the words.
And earlier we had another corker from Lucy Powell, the dazzlingly intellectual Leader of the Commons. In an effort to praise the military she managed to refer to our 'armed sauces'.
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