Ange's rant on Tory asylum hotels is lost in translation

Telegraph

5 hours ago

Such is the misery of living in Labour's Britain that many upper-income voters are fleeing abroad – including Keir Starmer. He couldn't join PMQs this week because an envelope was being opened in Canada.
In keeping with our immigration system, one missing PM was replaced by several foreigners – a parliamentary delegation from Tajikistan – who followed a translation via headphones.
They appeared confused – and no wonder! Standing in for our roving PM was Angela Rayner, adopting the elbow-on-the-table stance of a barmaid ejecting a drunk, and lisping with fury. 'Quite fwankly, Mr Speaker,' she likes to say, 'it'sss the Toriesss wot should apologiiise!'
Labour MPs love it. The delegation looked bewildered. 'I believe she is angry,' said the translator, 'and she says the opposition are doing a bad job of running the country'. It must confuse visitors further that Ange still refers to Yvette Cooper as 'the shadow home secretary'.
Rayner was sparring with Chris Philp – the real home secretary – who said he'd met victims of the grooming scandal and wanted to relay their concerns about the proposed national inquiry.
Ange accused him of playing party politics (a good chance for her to play party politics) and things descended fast into a Rovers Return ding-dong about illegal immigration.
Chris said Ange had 'some brass neck'. Ange calculated the cost of Tory asylum hotels at '£1 million a day, spived up the wall'. Chris cried, 'Goodness me, she's got a cheek' – grabbed his coat and flounced out the pub.
The Tajiks waited patiently for a translation of 'spived', no doubt in vain. I imagined Frank Muir on Call My Bluff explaining, 'It's a portmanteau of spiv and spaff, and can mean waste or...' – and then I came to. Sarah Champion was speaking.
Labour's admirable crusader against child abuse accidentally called the Speaker a 'deputy speaker', apologised and explained that there were 'too many deputies in the place today' ('ha, ha!') and she had lost track due to the 'point-scoring that's going on… on ALL sides' ('mumble, mumble').
The Government reacted as if slapped in the face. Ange was visibly stung. But it was a point well made. Grooming is a thing of evil; Westminster ought to be able to discuss it soberly. Yet MPs cannot resist turning it into an election broadcast.
Otherwise, PMQs was the usual hot air: you didn't miss much, Sir Keir.
MPs reminded us it was Grenfell week, Windrush week and refugees week. Edward Leigh, though anti-Tehran, asked if Britain could do more to stop settlements on the West Bank. Daisy Cooper of the Lib Dems – unusually, not dressed for the gym – urged the Government not to 'blindly follow' the US into war with Iran.
This is unlikely as Iran is just out of the reach of our combined military force of five soldiers and a pedalo, while what remains of the RAF will be escorting the PM to a philatelist convention in Manila.
He's got to be careful. With his domestic agenda crumbling and his MPs rebelling, the PM is exposed to the threat of a soft-Left rebellion. He might return to No 10 in a year's time to find Ange has moved in and changed the locks.