When Starmer professes his love for pubs, you know nuclear annihilation must be nigh
Prime Minister's Questions began in the context of looming nuclear-level annihilation for two once-great powers – the legacy of past British governance in part to blame. The local elections, however, played second fiddle in the Prime Minister's opening statement to some trouble on the Indian subcontinent.
Unsurprisingly, Kemi Badenoch wasn't keen to directly mention the local elections either, her party having faced a gale-force pounding at the hands of Reform. Instead, she led on the issue of the winter fuel allowance and mistakenly put two pence in the Oink-o-meter.
'Twenty-two billion black hole, fixing the foundations' ... out came all the old familiar not-favourites. Annihilation by a mal-constructed Pakistani nuke would be bliss compared to another four years of this.
It might not be four years though: in between Sir Oinky and a still un-sacked Lucy Powell sat Big Ange, glowering into the middle distance. George Eliot observed that 'there are glances of hatred that stab but raise no cry of murder'. Give her time, George.
Mrs Badenoch continued with a bizarre meander through the finer points of energy policy. Not a word about the Government's deranged pass on National Insurance gifted to India, not a whisper about the rape gangs or Paraffin Powell's odious remarks, let alone an allusion to the issue that prompted last week's great turquoise tidal wave: immigration. It was like watching two plesiosaurs tear into each other during the last few minutes of the Early Jurassic.
Still it was better than Ed Davey's contribution, which was its own sort of atom bomb of twee hideousness. He asked Oinky to tell the president of the United States that if 'he picks a fight with James Bond, Bridget Jones and Paddington Bear, he will lose'. This party was once led by Gladstone. All credit to the Prime Minister, he gave this piece of Twee Britannia the enormous eye roll it deserved.
The Lib Dems further embarrassed themselves in the form of Tessa Munt. Ms Munt is a sort of Ur-form liberal boomer: it was she who hectored Katie Lam for daring to mention the grooming gangs during a debate on child sexual abuse.
Like some of her generation, technology clearly bemuses Ms Munt, and during her long and very boring question about wartime photography, her phone began to go off. Cue a scrabble by an elite squad of Lib Dem MPs to silence the offending device from within her handbag. Think SAS Rogue Heroes but with the cast of The Good Life.
A lighter moment came from Matt Vickers, the Tory MP who told the House he'd heard a rumour about the Prime Minister in a pub. 'No, not that one,' he joked, as Oinky turned puce.
Rather it was that there was some reason, presumably hidden deep in the PM's piglet-hood, that he hated pubs enough to tax them into oblivion. 'Nobody likes pubs more than me,' the PM replied, which is the sort of thing a psychotic HR manager would say before announcing that any employee seen in the public house opposite the office will be sacked on sight. All in all, another sorry showing. Come friendly bombs – we can't take another four years of this.
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