With le tout Westminster now tipping him to become our next Chancellor, Ed Miliband came dude-walking into the Commons for energy questions.
Mr Miliband led with his teeth. With those cow-catchers he’d be useful as a snowplough on Scots railway lines this week.
If we saw even more of those gnashers than normal that was because the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero – the title he retains for the moment – was smiling so much. Gosh, he was pleased with himself. More Left-wing than normal, too.
First, his gait. Readers may remember the actor Richard Pryor and the ‘bad’ walk he did in a 1980 prison comedy, Stir Crazy.
Pryor’s character wanted to show how tough he was, so he rolled his shoulders and elongated his stride, he and his friend (played by Gene Wilder) repeatedly boasting ‘yeah, we’re bad’.
This is how Ed Mil’ now perambulates Parliament. His retinue have not quite got the hang of it, mind you. They shuffle in his wake, looking slightly embarrassed by the great sausage.
Caroline Johnson (Con, Sleaford & North Hykeham) sought to puncture him by asking about the Government’s £150 bung on energy bills.
Now tipped to become our next Chancellor, Ed Miliband came dude-walking into the Commons for energy questions
Dr Caroline Johnson (Con, Sleaford & North Hykeham) sought to puncture Mr Miliband by asking about the Government’s £150 bung on energy bills
‘Socialists do have a habit of taking money from people and then asking them to be grateful for getting some of it back,’ argued Dr Johnson. ‘Could he tell us how much the £150 reduction will actually cost the taxpayer?’
Dr Johnson is a not unpeculiar figure – she stands utterly still and barely moves her jaw when squawking – yet her question was fair enough. It electrified Mr Miliband. He reared up like a pronged donkey.
‘I will tell the Hon Lady!’ he neighed. ‘We are proud of the fact that in the Budget we raised taxes on the wealthy so we could cut bills for millions of families. For too long this country has been run for the wealthy and powerful by the Conservatives.’
Mr Miliband has always been prone to gaseous eruptions but that swipe at ‘the wealthy and powerful’ felt pointed and political. He flourished it for the benefit of the Labour backbenchers behind him.
They stirred a little, though perhaps not as much as he would have liked. He was straying on to tax policy and signalling his desire for higher taxes on ‘the wealthy’. Brace yourselves, Middle Britain.
Given Mr Miliband’s enthusiasm for Net Zero subsidies, he could be pricey as Chancellor.
Bradley Thomas, a new Tory frontbencher, noted that energy bills today were £190 higher than when Labour took office. He also recalled an election pledge from Mr Miliband and Sir Keir Starmer that energy bills would be cut by £300. What happened to that?
Mr Miliband: ‘Bills are going to be lower! If he just listens, I will tell him!’ He was soon jabbering about the last Budget and claimed that the Government was ‘delivering on the cost-of-living crisis’.
My, my, such a lot about Treasury matters.
Even by his own excitable standards he was souped up, cackling scorn at opponents and stabbing his index fingers – they are as long as parsnips – at the despatch box. Volume levels were high.
It was no surprise when his deputy, poor Michael Shanks, reported that he had ‘temporarily lost hearing in one of my ears’. Memo to Treasury civil servants: buy earplugs.
Over at the Home Affairs Select Committee, four top coppers were questioned about their decision to ban Israeli football fans from a recent match in Birmingham. The MPs wondered if anti-Jewish political pressure had been brought on the police. This was denied.
The policemen produced a blizzard of jargon: ‘Intelligence bronze commander’, ‘weekly sit reps’, intelligence being ‘sanitised and triangulated’, ‘handling codes’, ‘European silver cadre’ and more. Craig Guildford, Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, wore a fruity smirk throughout and insisted he’d done nuffink, guvnor.
If any suspect behaved like that in a crime drama, you’d mark him down as a wrong ‘un.
