Sir Keir Starmer has reached the ‘exasperated’ stage. It happens to most prime ministers and it is when they no longer bother to hide their impatience with the mosquitoes that buzz around their heads in the Commons.
They try to swat these irritants with lordly denunciations. They deplore opponents’ opportunism – quite forgetting that they themselves once resorted to such low gambits. They gabble, not noticing that they are starting to sound pettish.
Amid this combustive energy, they do much sighing and make it evident that critics have no idea. No idea of the pressures that they, the great leader, must endure. No idea of the real world.
They dismiss opponents as irresponsible nay-sayers, nihilistic ‘talkers-down of the economy’ who ‘never back Britain’. No one understands how hard it is to govern! No one understands the pressures. The loneliness!
Behold the PM as neglected genius, the selfless stalwart who remains at the helm, soaked by spindrift, dogged by fatigue, even while these PYGMIES complain about his achievements.
It’s enough to make you snap an asparagus spear into six pieces and masticate, feverishly, until green juice dribbles from the side of your lips. Like blood.
Sir Keir, a prosaically dutiful fellow, spends ages preparing for the weekly PMQs. This time, surely, Kemi Badenoch would ask him about the India free trade deal. Overnight there had been much comment about provisions in the deal which will favour Indian businesses and allow them to send staff to work in Britain without having to pay National Insurance here.
Sir Keir entered at 11.55am with a folder decorated by jazzy tabs. So convinced was he that India would feature large in the coming session that he asked the Trade Secretary, Jonnie Reynolds, to sit beside him.
Sir Keir Starmer seemed shocked to not receive any questions concerning his India trade deal, with Kemi Badenoch instead asking about winter fuel payments
Mr Reynolds, the Cabinet’s one success story, was clapped heartily on the back. Rachel Reeves was absent. Ditto David Lammy. So was Ed Miliband. Mr Miliband seldom attends PMQs. Because it triggers unhappy memories or because his presence would allow Tory MPs to poke fun at him?
Beside Mr Reynolds sat Yvette Cooper, looking as if she had not slept for days. Further down the bench: Wes Streeting, perky. Sir Keir opened by noting the tensions between India and Pakistan. He then leaned back to await the first of the inevitable questions about his India trade deal. There came… none.
It was infuriating. You go to all the trouble of preparing a quiverful of zingers and no one mentions the subject. Like baking a delicious cake for the village fete’s tea stall, only for no one to cut a single slice.
Kemi Badenoch asked, instead, about winter fuel payments. Sir Keir started gabbling peevishly. Mrs Badenoch was calm and unusually focused.
Labour MPs did not enjoy the exchanges.
Some massaged their necks. Ian Byrne (Lab, Liverpool West Derby) even nodded agreement as the Tory leader made her attacks.
Sir Ed Davey rose, to groans. He, too, asked about winter fuel payments and about Donald Trump. He also raised the film industry and essayed a lame wisecrack about James Bond and Paddington Bear.
The House laughed with pain. But not Sir Keir. He was too caught up with indignation to see any joke.
His reply to the Lib Dem leader – with whom he may one day have to coalesce – was unusually snippy. Labour MPs sat in still silence, not sure how to react.
Sir Keir did not even smile when Tessa Munt (Lib Dem, Wells & Mendip Hills) asked one of her multi-paragraph epics. Ms Munt has no idea what a dribbler she is. The chamber groaned again, and laughed, and cheered ironically when she finally came to a halt.
A guide dog on the floor in front of her rolled over and stuck its four legs in the air, stiff as a corpse. Sir Keir could have taken the mickey out of Munt. It might have cheered his demoralised troops.
But he was too caught up in his own, noble tribulations to see the fun in that.
