Theresa May hadn’t been able to achieve anything very much by trying to look busy, so doing nothing had to be worth a try. At least that way, she was in with a shout of not actively making things worse. So for the past three weeks the prime minister has been on a self-imposed retreat. No public appearances, not a word spoken. A chance to block out the outside world, realign her chakras and contemplate the meaninglessness of her life. And ours.
But all indifferent things come to an end and the Leader in Name Only was eventually forced to break her silence at prime minister’s questions. Not that her absence had induced much fondness among her fellow MPs as the Commons chamber was barely half full. Her reputation precedes her. Even when Lino talks she seldom has anything very much to say. There again, neither did anyone else.
It was almost as if Jeremy Corbyn and Lino had sat down together that morning and agreed on all the difficult things they would go out of their way to avoid. “Can we not talk about Brexit?” Lino asked. “The article 50 extension, the European elections and the ongoing cross-party talks are going down really badly with the Tory grassroots.” The Labour leader nodded. It was a deal. His Labour party colleagues weren’t overjoyed that he had fudged the second referendum and might be on the verge of signing off a Tory Brexit.
Having agreed not to mention Brexit, Corbyn and Lino came to a second contra-deal. Jezza was bitterly regretting having written a foreword to a book he had only skim-read – hell, it had only seemed a bit antisemitic – and May was furious that Liz Truss had instagrammed her £135,000 dinner with the wife of one of Putin’s cronies. So least said, soonest mended. Which meant that PMQs was basically narrowed down to a simple exchange.
Admit it, shrugged Jezza. You’ve promised a lot but basically you’re just a bit shit. “Sure,” replied Lino. “But so are you.” It was hard to disagree with either of them. Bizarrely, no other MPs in the entire session had the slightest concern over Brexit – the amnesia is contagious – and only Tory Tom Tugendhat came close to asking her anything difficult with a question on Huawei. Her reply that Britain needed all the trade deals it could get and letting the Chinese have access to all our secrets was a price worth paying was not wholly reassuring.
Brexit was on the menu later in the afternoon at the liaison committee – the parliamentary supergroup made up of all the select committee chairs – but, despite prolonged rehab and a 12-step programme, the prime minister was still unable to break the habit of a lifetime and give anything approaching a direct answer. She even managed to interrupt the first question by suggesting it might be helpful if she was to start proceedings by reading out a statement on her current level of confusion. It wasn’t.
Labour’s Hilary Benn was given first dibs at extracting information. Could Lino give any clue on how the cross-party talks were progressing? Were reports that she might accept Labour’s position on a customs union accurate? May mumbled. Words, words, random words, burble, burble, babble. There were many forms of customs unions some of which weren’t even customs unions so if we could all agree to use unworkable customs arrangements then we might be close to an agreement. There again, we might not. Make of that what you will.
It continued in much the same vein for the next 90 minutes. She couldn’t publish the withdrawal bill because no one had yet decided on the font but it could have been published months ago if parliament had passed her withdrawal agreement. On days like this the Maybot wouldn’t even be classified as obsolete hardware, let alone pass a Turing test.
Over the years, Yvette Cooper has consistently played the bad cop but even she is now finding it a struggle. After failing to elicit any details of the common external tariffs, she beat her head repeatedly on the table. Anything to stop the pain. Rachel Reeves tried the good cop approach. Could the prime minister give a clear answer to one question. Just one. Starting with her name. She couldn’t.
On her way out, Lino was handed a note. The cabinet secretary had finally got round to reading last week’s “My Way or the Huawei” sketch and fingered Gavin Williamson for the National Security Council leak. Now she’d have to tell Private Pike “to shut up and go away” and she hadn’t even finished paying off the last two instalments on the fireplace he had flogged her. Totes embarrassing. And Liam Fox wasn’t going to be happy now there was a second “disgraced former defence secretary”. But at least she still had ministers of the calibre of Chris Grayling in whom she had confidence.
Williamson was mortified. No one had ever told him it was wrong to leak official secrets. And who would lead the troops into battle against the Chinese? Still, it could be worse. As Boris Johnson had proved time and again, being untrustworthy did no long-term harm to a political career.
