“The right honourable gentleman referred to the report by the UN panel of experts. He has a copy of it, and so do I. However, it is the leaked report. It was received by the UN on Monday, but not given to us. We have not officially received the report, um, um, er,” said Tobias Ellwood, junior foreign office minister, frantically looking around him and hoping the file marked ‘Top Secret: For Everyone’s Eyes Only’ would self-combust on the front bench behind him. The file remained stubbornly intact.
Ellwood chose to ignore it. “Yes, of course I have got it, but I have not received it, um er,” he continued, to everyone’s general bewilderment. If in doubt, carry on digging. “I have not received it officially, and it is important to have a chance to digest it.”
The lot of a junior minister is not always a happy one; thrust into the limelight to take the flak for Philip Hammond over a UN report that British arms had been used by Saudi forces to kill Yemeni civilians, Ellwood managed to shed more light on his own semantic and intellectual limitations than on British arms sales. Perhaps, though, that was the point of his being there.
Junior disabilities minister Justin Tomlinson had made a rather better fist of his outing at the dispatch box moments earlier to answer an urgent question on the court of appeal’s decision on Wednesday that the bedroom tax was discriminatory. Like master, like servant. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, makes no effort to conceal his contempt for anyone or anything. He is the master of his own universe, a parallel space-time continuum where he is invariably right and anyone who disagrees with him is an idiot. Unlike Hammond, who at least had the grace to look as if he might have had a reason for not answering the Saudi question in person by making himself scarce, IDS turned up to loll around the front bench and taunt the opposition.
There was outrage from both Labour and the SNP once they realised that IDS was not going to take the questions in person: IDS merely smirked, doodled on a pad and checked his phone in between giving his sidekick the occasional word of encouragement. “Go get ’em, son,” he growled. Tomlinson didn’t need to be asked twice. Tomlinson is a man with serious form who knows how to take care of himself. He has close links with Wonga – “Stop moaning about losing your benefits and take out a loan at 292% pa. And get up out of that chair while I’m talking to you” – and in a former career he was manager of the Eros nightclub in Swindon. Eros might even once have had a panic room.
“Don’t worry, IDS,” he snarled. “I’ll be your carer, baby.” And with that he was off. No, he wasn’t at all contrite about the court of appeal’s ruling. The court had got it wrong and he would be appealing the decision. He made it sound more of a threat than an appeal. “Look,” he went on. “Those miserable moaning minnies all got their dosh in the end through the discretionary payments scheme, so what’s the problem?”
The problem, as several MPs were quick to point out, was that discretionary payments were just that, discretionary, and 75% of people who had applied for them had been turned down, and that the bedroom tax had been declared discriminatory. “I ain’t bothered,” Tomlinson declared. “I’m doing nuffink, so come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.” You won’t catch this minister heading off to the panic room.
