As a general rule, an urgent question is only granted in the Commons on topics that everyone in the country might be talking about. Things like the Syrian refugee crisis and the closure of Kids Company. It’s a fair bet that almost no one has heard of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, let alone been talking about it, but that didn’t stop the speaker granting time to the Tory MP, Sir Christopher Chope, for just such a question.
Indeed there was a suggestion from Tory Simon Burns, whose hatred for John Bercow is wholly reciprocated, that the matter was a waste of parliamentary time primarily designed to embarrass the Conservative party by showcasing its internecine warfare. Heaven forbid.
Chope is not a happy bunny. After 10 years’ loyal service on the parliamentary assembly, he has been gutted to discover that – along with fellow Tories Sir Edward Leigh and Cheryl Gillan – he has not been re-elected. It is not the four-weeks-a-year freebies in Strasbourg – one of the food capitals of Europe – he was going to miss, he stressed, but the opportunity to discuss very important Europeany thingies with like-minded Europeany-committed gourmets.
David Cameron is also not a happy bunny. Having found himself obliged to rethink cuts to working tax credits and unlikely to win a vote to bomb the hell out of Syria, he has fallen back to his last resort: taking out his frustration on his own party. Chope, Leigh and Gillan had all displeased their glorious leader by voting to extend the period of purdah for the forthcoming EU referendum – something Cameron is desperate to avoid as he intends to rig the odds of a yes vote as much as possible in his favour – and Chope was certain the unwanted diet being imposed on him was politically motivated.
A further surprise was in store, when it became clear that the leader of the house, Chris Grayling, is not quite as stupid as he often appears. Though it did take his non-appearance to provide a rare sighting of his intellect. Sensing he was on an even greater hiding to nothing in the Commons than usual, Grayling had sensibly left the responsibility of defending the indefensible to his deputy, Therese Coffey. Miserable, alone on the front bench and totally out of her depth, Coffey had clearly decided her best hope was to answer every question in a hitherto unknown language. “Bleugh shmeugh geefay page 174 nehis prew,” she said defiantly.
“Doesn’t the deputy leader understand that election to the parliamentary assembly is not a matter of prime ministerial patronage?” said the shadow leader of the Commons, Chris Bryant, almost disappointed by his opponent’s lack of fight. “Bleugh shmeugh geefay page 174 nehis prew,” Coffey repeated insistently, an answer that everyone – rightly or wrongly – took to mean that the prime minister’s interference had been a total coincidence and the rules of democratic European gastronomy had been properly observed.
With that, Coffey found herself at the centre of a bunfight. With almost all the buns having been bought from Patisserie Valerie. There was outrage that the PM had delayed the decision so long that none of the other MPs elected to the assembly would be able to get their noses in the trough this Saturday. There was a letter of regret from Ukraine at Chope’s removal. Labour’s Mike Gapes said Cameron was acting like a top-down Leninist. He didn’t sound too certain whether that was a good or bad thing, but no other Labour MP was willing to help him out as they weren’t too sure either.
“Bleugh shmeugh geefay page 174 nehis prew,” said Coffey, stuck on default error 401. The only person to come to her rescue was Tory Mark Pritchard, who was visibly relieved to have been spared his leader’s chop and re-elected to the dining club. “Not all Conservatives are sycophants,” he mumbled, swallowing a large slice of sachertorte, totally unaware he had just contradicted himself.
