Those we haven’t loved. It’s yet to register with Andrea Leadsom that she was sacked by Boris Johnson in the February reshuffle. In her own mind she stepped down of her own accord despite repeated phone calls begging her to stay on, and no one has as yet been heartless enough to break the bad news to her. Which is how she came to make one of the least self-aware and most self-indulgent resignation speeches ever heard in the Commons.
It may even catch on. Last week we had Sajid Javid’s statement, which was all the more powerful for having delivered a warning shot to Boris Johnson. Andrea’s? Not so much. But if every third-rate minister who has been fired is now going to be awarded the primetime gig after PMQs to witter on about their non-existent achievements, then the next few months could get very busy. Priti Patel should probably book her slot now to avoid any future disappointment. It looks as if she’s going to need it.
After a swift jab at the former Speaker – she and John Bercow are united in their mutual loathing of one another – Leadsom settled down to a 15-minute dirge of denial. There were no telling points to be made or scores to be settled. Just a total rewrite of her career to raise it into the realms of mediocrity. It was as if someone who didn’t know her very well had been asked to give the eulogy at her funeral and was struggling to come up with anything memorable.
Even her closest friends squirmed a little as she tried to pass off her two failed attempts to be party leader as an act of supreme selflessness rather than a personal embarrassment. Other Tory MPs just stared at the floor, willing it to be over. The opposition was even less kind. Though it’s customary to sit through these things in their entirety, Labour and SNP headed for the exits in their masses. Preserving their own sanity took precedence over precedent. By the end, Leadsom was pretty much talking only to herself. The story of her time in parliament.
Still, the statement did serve one purpose in reminding the Tories of the bullet they had dodged. A part-time Boris was still a lot better than a full-time Andrea. Not that some Conservatives aren’t beginning to have a few second thoughts about their choice of leader. Johnson’s 80-seat majority is rather more fragile than it may seem and if he fails to deliver on his promises, he – and they – are goners. Sooner or later, Boris is going to have to do more than just bluster.
Jeremy Corbyn had opened PMQs with three straight questions about the coronavirus that yet again exposed how slow the government had been to react to the threat of a pandemic. Even with the experts – much to Michael Gove’s annoyance – now onboard, Boris still doesn’t have a credible response plan if things get noticeably worse. The jibes about him being a part-time prime minister are beginning to wound. Principally because they are true. Boris has never been into anything for the long-haul.
There were no answers to how already overstretched hospitals were going to cope with an extra 2 million patients. Presumably Boris expects the 40 new hospitals to build themselves, cancer patients to go into spontaneous remission, and thousands of workers who have left the NHS due to ill health and stress to volunteer to put themselves at risk of contagion. While he continues to stay safe by working from home. No need for everyone to die.
Nor were his reassurances that “we haven’t yet” reached a point where the police will stop investigating murders that reassuring. Give it a few days and you can top anyone you want. That bastard who lets his dog shit on the pavement? He’s on borrowed time. As for the workings of statutory sick pay and universal credit, Boris was totally clueless. But then those are just for the skiving little people.
Boris also appeared out of his depth when Corbyn switched to the ever-increasing number of bullying allegations being made against Priti Patel. He didn’t seem at all bothered about the need for an independent inquiry and just said over and over again that as far as he was concerned the home secretary could do whatever she liked as she was doing an outstanding job terrorising both her staff and immigrants. The people had voted for a bully and he had given them a bully. He wasn’t bothered how abusive or incompetent Priti was, he was going to stick by her regardless. Up until the point when he wasn’t and chose to throw her under a bus. The more Boris praised her, the more uncomfortable Patel looked. “We’ve got Brexit done,” Boris said randomly. No one on the frontbench had the heart to tell him they really hadn’t. Brexit had barely started.
PMQs ended in a moment of total absurdity when the hapless Peter Bone – what have the people of Wellingborough done in a previous life to deserve an MP like him? – tried to claim that Boris’s visit to a hospital in Kettering had been done out of the media glare. It was just a total coincidence that photos of the trip had been all over the front pages of several Tory papers.
Still, by then everyone was past caring. Especially Boris. He’d already done his bit for one day. In fact, he needed to be elsewhere, so he persuaded Matt Hancock to chair the Cobra coronavirus meeting in the afternoon as he had an antenatal refresher course. After all, he’d done the press conference the day before and that was more than enough for any prime minister for one week. If 600,000 people died, they died. No great biggy. Time for a lie down.
