Little more than four hours after flying halfway round the world, the prime minister was back in the house to give a statement about the G20 summit in Brisbane. He was, understandably, looking far from his best – though still a great deal perkier than the chancellor, whose skull becomes ever more visible beneath the stretched parchment of his skin – and can’t have been reassured to walk in on junior defence minister Julian Brazier answering an urgent question about the country’s reservists.
There is a time and a place for listening to Brazier, and 12 hours earlier when he was trying to get to sleep somewhere over India would have suited Cameron just fine. Brazier has the voice of a man born into the officer class: which is to say, that though he barks quite loudly, he is all too often unintelligible. He is also invariably soporific. A man to whom one instinctively tunes out rather than tunes in. The prime minister looked up briefly when Brazier talked of “cruising the BBC website” but otherwise he rubbed his eyes to try and keep himself awake. As did several other MPs who didn’t have his excuse.
Eventually Brazier beat a tactical retreat and Cameron struggled to his feet. The G20 had been a brilliant success, he said. Mr Putin had been firmly ticked off and pushed to the edges of the group photos; everyone had congratulated the British economy and wished they had a long-term economic plan like his; Britain had shown it could lead the world in beating Ebola by releasing charity singles; and the koala action had been superb, though they could be little bastards when they weren’t stoned on eucalyptus. Or listening to the collected speeches of Julian Brazier.
In reply, Ed Miliband began by suggesting he would have been even beastlier to Putin, but he sounded more starling than hawk. He was on stronger ground in pointing out that the prime minister liked to take all the credit when the economy was doing well, but blamed global circumstances when things looked like they might become a bit iffy. “The prime minister is getting his excuses in early,” he said triumphantly, bouncing with excitement.
The prime minister wasn’t playing ball, though. Or anything else. The only thing he planned on getting in early was a shower and bed. He looked wearily across at the leader of the opposition as if to say, “what else do you expect? That’s what all governments do”, before muttering “long-term economic plan” again. The Tory backbenches gave a Pavlovian cheer in response. Tory grandee Sir Peter Tapsell had other things on his mind. The father of the house will be standing down soon and is keen to see a second Crimean war in his lifetime.
The more robust response to Putin would be to “rarm”, he declared. Cameron looked puzzled before realising Tapsell had meant “re-arm”. We have a new frigate coming, Cameron ad-libbed hopefully.
Though probably no one to sail it, as Labour MP Kevan Jones had earlier pointed out that the Army Reserve had grown by just 20 in the last year despite Capita being paid £50m to increase recruitment. But this was a problem for another day. Labour MPs were just as keen to get home as the prime minister and when the Speaker called time on the session, the house was almost empty. The G20 summit? It’s the sort of thing a prime minister can do in his sleep.
