Whisper it softly, but Keir Starmer made a joke. A good one at that. MPs from most corners of the Commons even laughed. Genuine laughter. Not the contrived partisan guffaws you usually get at prime minister’s questions that makes the public howl in despair.
OK, we can take issue with the delivery. Starmer has next to no grasp of comic timing. Any gag takes its life in its own hands when Keir is around. Most are dead on arrival. But let’s not be too picky. It was still a black swan event. A genuine rarity.
He can’t help not having much of a sense of humour. That’s the luck of the draw at birth. Keir is naturally disposed to be dull. To be literal. To take things at face value. And let’s be thankful for that. We had more than enough of comedians running the show under the Tories to last a lifetime. Take a bow, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
So yes, the gag could have worked even better. Possibly even brought proceedings to a standstill for a couple of minutes. But it was still a landmark moment. Not just for Starmer, but for PMQs. The Commons is a notorious graveyard for wannabe comedians. A place where bad gags come to die. Where MPs discover they aren’t quite as sharp and witty as they imagine themselves to be. The funniest moments in the chamber are almost invariably unintentional. Not least when members start to take themselves desperately seriously.
Let’s hear it for the joke, then. It came near the start during Starmer’s opening monologue. Having addressed the serious stuff of antisemitism, Keir wished everyone a happy Christmas in his last Commons appearance of the year. And in the spirit of goodwill to all men – and all women – he had this advice to Reform: “If mysterious men appear from the east bearing gifts, this time report it to the police.”
Weirdly, the only person who didn’t seem to find this funny was Nigel Farage. Perhaps he still can’t quite see what the problem is with taking bribes from the Russians – believes that Nathan Gill has been hard done by. Instead, Nige looked stony-faced as he sat in his new, favourite place in the Commons. The gallery that runs the length of the chamber above the government benches. AKA the Special Gallery.
We wondered at first if this was all some elaborate setup. That Nige had only taken up residence there so that Reform MPs could shout “He’s behind you!” when a dopey Labour backbencher observed that Farage was nowhere to be seen. But that would have been one hell of a lot of trouble for a one bite, pantomime laugh.
So the most likely reason for Nige’s non-appearance in the chamber is that he is having a monumental sulk. He just can’t bring himself to accept that the Commons rules only allow him a single question once every six weeks or so. He takes it as an affront to his narcissism. If Nige had his way, he would take centre stage every week. MPs of his own and other parties only exist as satellites orbiting his ego. When he dies, the world dies with him. What makes this even worse for him is that literally no one else cares if Nige is having a strop. The one thing the Reform leader can’t bear is to be ignored.
Buoyed by the unexpected success of his three wise men gag, Keir chose to double down on Reform. Noticing that Sarah Pochin had made a rare appearance in the Commons, he said he hoped she got the white Christmas she desired so dearly.
Poor Sarah! It’s not her fault that she can’t help projectile vomiting every time she sees a brown or black face in an advert. I doubt we’ll be seeing Sarah again any time soon. She can’t take too much of this. Too many black and brown faces on the Labour benches.
There was also just time for Starmer to fire one last arrow at Nigel. Christmas was a time of forgiveness, he said. So, following on from the letter published by the Guardian on Wednesday, perhaps Nige would like to make an apology to the former Dulwich boys he allegedly racially abused. Judging by his expression, saying sorry was the last thing on his mind.
If Nige had been in a bad mood before, he was furious now. Any apology would be the thin end of the wedge. Après moi, le déluge. There was no way of knowing where all this could end. Deny, deny, deny. It was old news. Here was the Commons condemning an attack on Jews at Bondi, while the Reform leader had been accused of once having said: “Hitler was right.”
As for the rest of PMQs, it was pretty much a non-event. Starmer and Kemi Badenoch trading bad Christmas cracker puns to no great effect. As though neither really had their heart in it. Kemi would be the most likely one to be offered a job in panto, with her third-rate innuendo that invariably telegraphs the punchline minutes in advance, but this wasn’t a show anyone would pay good money to see. Rather it was a bloodless endurance contest.
Kemi tried to go in on Starmer’s remarks to the liaison committee on Monday about the levers of government not working as they should – almost an admission the government was in effect ungovernable – but this wasn’t the best day for this as Keir had just had a big win on the Erasmus scheme.
The Tory leader ignored this. She can no longer quite work out whether she is pro- or anti-Brexit. Though she does have a kneejerk aversion to young people working inside the EU. Fraternising with the enemy.
It was left to Starmer to have the final word. He had picked up on an interview the shadow transport secretary, Richard Holden, had given in which he had dismissed most of the shadow cabinet as a bunch of nonentities. This could just be the first time Rich has inadvertently been right about anything, but it hasn’t gone down well with many of his colleagues.
I guess it takes a nonentity to know a nonentity. His therapist will have their work cut out to nail down if this was a moment of denial or self-acceptance. Maybe it was just a cry for help and he could do with a break. As do we all.
The Bonfire of the Insanities by John Crace (Guardian Faber Publishing, £16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
