QUENTIN LETTS: The Lib Dems are no longer against nukes - as long as they're fuelled by lentil gas, perhaps!

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

When North Korea tried to launch a warship the other day, things did not go entirely to plan and the vessel capsized.
Labour 's announcement of its defence plans nearly went the same way. What a foul-up they made of it.
MPs were cross that they were not allowed to read the defence review until the Secretary of State, John Healey, was at the despatch box. The Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, went on the war path, voicing backbenchers' fury and ensuring that Mr Healey's announcement was delayed by other squabbles.
Commons leader Lucy Powell took several direct hits from Sir Lindsay. She curled a lip at him but that only encouraged him to unleash more verbal torpedoes.
Ms Powell was soon listing, holed below decks and with much of her superstructure gone. After further sorties from her Tory counterpart, Jesse Norman, she may be beyond salvage. While a 'glug glug glug' came from HMS Powell, Mr Healey glided to the despatch box to agree that MPs should, yes, be allowed to read the document before asking him about it.
By this stage, many of its contents had already been reported by newspapers – a proud day for journalists, egad – and Sir Keir Starmer had held a wonderfully wooden event in front of two half-built frigates at Govan. The nasal knight was surrounded by shipyard workers. He gulped, blinked, said 'er' and 'um', and managed to create further confusion as to when, if ever, defence spending would reach 3 per cent of gross domestic product.
Back at Westminster a junior defence minister, Luke Pollard, had a sticky time explaining what the Government's policy on nuclear weapons would now be. Mr Pollard, hesitating, explained: 'I don't want to eat the Secretary of State's sandwiches.' Speaker Hoyle, roaring in broad Lancastrian: 'Don't you wurry, the Sunday papers did it already!'
Mr Healey was by now in the chamber, going through the text of his speech but perhaps silently thinking 'cripes, what a shambles'. Beside him sat another defence minister, Maria Eagle, dabbing at her runny nose with a sopping Kleenex. The chemical warfare laboratory at Aldermaston would not have handled that hankie without a hazmat suit.
Just when things could hardly deteriorate further, Tory frontbencher Mark Francois came scampering into the chamber like a plump old spaniel with a string of butcher's sausages. He whispered something urgent to the shadow secretary of state, James Cartlidge, who promptly stood up to announce that the review
document had been given to leading defence firms at 8am. Two and a half hours before even the journalists? Disgrace! Speaker Hoyle whooshed back to his feet and said he hoped there had been no insider-dealing on the stock market as a result.
Up in the gallery beside us blunt nibs, meanwhile, sat Lord Robertson, the Labour grandee and former Nato boss who led the defence review. Tories suggested he must be appalled by the goings-on. Lord Robertson looked to me as if he was enjoying the chaos enormously.
Finally we reached real points of debate. Jeremy Corbyn and a few Lefties complained about a breaking of nuclear non-proliferation treaty agreements. The Greens – Ellie Chowns from the SAS lands of Herefordshire, indeed – wailed that 'warheads don't buy a safer world'. Tory heckler: 'I think you'll find they do.' Debbie Abrahams (Lab, Oldham E) fretted about mental health. The Labour MP for Aldershot wanted a new bank. And the Lib Dems are no longer opposed to nukes. Provided they are fuelled by lentil gas, perhaps.
Mr Healey ground his jaw. He spoke of 'our island home' and said 'we must now move to war-fighting readiness'. His macho routine did not work as well as it usually does. When he claimed that Rachel Reeves had 'fixed the economic foundations', I regret to say that the House just laughed.
Not that Mr Healey will mind that the Treasury, which may be his more immediate foe than even the Kremlin, has now become a national joke.