Welfare minister Liz Kendall put down her novelty spectacles and summoned all the resolution in her slender veins. ‘This Government,’ she squeaked, ‘must not and will not duck the big challenges!’ Three and a half hours later: capitulation.
Even then, Deputy Whip Mark Tami was prowling the chamber, gazing doggy-eyed at Labour MPs. Treasury minister James Murray – looks like a mortuary assistant – sat sniffing a fishy breeze. He soon scuttled away, as did Ms Kendall. Panic klaxons honked.
Cave-in came at 5.25pm when Sir Stephen Timms, the Herman Munster of the operation, announced that the Bill was going to be neutered. Labour MPs cheered at having made Sir Keir Starmer look a fool.
Landslide a year ago. Now mudslide. Sir Keir had been buried under the sludge of dissent. All that remains: two legs akimbo and a muffled, nasal voice saying ‘the people voted for change’.
If No 10 hoped the concession would end Labour in-fighting, it was wrong. Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) gloated at the disarray. Show pony Imran Hussain (Bradford East) was on his hooves, over-egging his wheezy outrage. Ian Lavery (Blyth) shouted: ‘This is crazy, man.’ Ian Byrne (Liverpool W Derby) said belief in Labour had been ‘shattered’ by an ‘immoral’ shambles.
The Bill began its second reading after lunch. Off it drifted, like the Hindenburg from Frankfurt in May 1937, amid brave boasts as pennants fluttered. There were hopes that Sir Keir would make a rare visit to his Westminster plantations to sit beside Ms Kendall. This would allow the PM to assert his leadership. Sir Keir was nowhere to be seen.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street yesterday
Welfare minister Liz Kendall put down her novelty spectacles and summoned all the resolution in her slender veins in the Commons, writes Quentin Letts
Pensions minister Torsten Bell was on parade. I saw him half turn and give a dazzling smile. Oddly, there was no one obvious in his orbit. He did not seem to be aiming that smile at anyone. Just practising his routines. You would not entrust young Torsten with a laden tea-tray.
Kemi Badenoch led from the front for the Tories and shook her right arm in animation. She goes all crazy when she does that and it’s rather pulse-quickening.
You glimpse a wild woman within. Opposition leaders seldom speak in Bill debates but she is making a habit of it. Useful time in the nets. She is growing in confidence. A little.
Welfare spending was out of control. ‘The rider is getting heavier than the horse.’ The Tories were ‘the only party calling for restraint’. Nigel Farage’s Reform MPs, since you ask, were absent.
The day being hot, some used fans. Nadia Whittome (Lab, Nottingham E) and Stella Creasy (Lab, Walthamstow) had battery-operated jobs. Cat Smith (Lab, Lancaster & Wyre) fluttered an elegant Spanish one. Kim Johnson’s was as big as a squash racket. She waved it with such vigour that the resultant gale caused havoc with the hairdo of her neighbour Rebecca Long-Bailey.
A clerk chewed gum. Clive Betts (Lab, Sheffield SE) muttered to himself. The Lib Dems’ Steve Darling held the paw of his guide dog.
More than one Labour MP spoke of ‘encouraging people to try work’, as if work were an exotic starter at a Persian restaurant. Sheep’s eye in custard. We must encourage people to try it.
Chris McDonald (Lab, Stockton N) deplored Mrs Badenoch’s lack of ’empathy’ to welfare recipients. What about ’empathy’ for Stockton taxpayers who rise at dawn and slog off to work only to have half their wages nicked to pay for welfare grabbers that Ms Kendall used to call ‘Mickey takers’?
Rachael Maskell (Lab, York C) was affectingly tearful and even quoted Nelson Mandela. Marie Tidball (Lab, Penistone) was a ball of impressively theatrical fury. Jeremy Corbyn (Ind, Islington N) spoke for his former tribe: ‘If it does cost more money, so be it.’
It was, in short, a day of prime ministerial panic, when Starmerite greasers saw the mirage fade and the Left reasserted its dominance. Tony Blair faced a similar rebellion in December 1997. I remember Harriet Harman afterwards hugging members of the sisterhood. Blair stood his ground and won. Starmer folded.
