THERE are strong arguments for scrapping Prime Minister’s Questions, in my humble opinion.
It produces so little light it may as well be a black hole, its gravity sucking in and annihilating all substance. It is the apotheosis of pointless parliamentary theatre.
Those arguments become a great deal stronger during events like the build-up to local elections, or the myriad by-elections we have suffered of late.
As Keir Starmer (below) and Rishi Sunak traded scripted blows across the floor of the house below, your author was reminded that among all Tony Blair’s crimes, he did do one good thing: making PMQs once a week where it used to be twice.
Neither Starmer nor Sunak are very good at PMQs. Neither are particularly gifted speakers or especially quick.
READ MORE: Rishi Sunak evades questions over role of UK troops in Gaza amid demand for 'clarity'
Stephen Flynn however, is very good and this week he was terrific.
His mission: Get two questions to the Prime Minister without Sunak landing easy blows about the misfortunes of the SNP.
Flynn employed a clever tactic. He latched onto a story which broke over the weekend about British troops potentially being deployed in Gaza.
The BBC reported on Saturday that UK soldiers may be involved in distributing aid in Gaza.
It then got brought up during a ministerial statement on Monday. The UK Government being the UK Government said they would not comment on speculation on what their troops may or may not be doing.
So Flynn had his line: Are British troops going to be deployed to Gaza?
The Prime Minister looked a bit taken aback by the question. He’d just done six rounds with Starmer and then Jonathan Gullis (above) belched out rather a lot of words about immigrants, so you can hardly blame him.
READ MORE: UN expert accuses Israel of possible 'war crime' over killing of West Bank child
Sunak, like his Armed Forces Minister earlier in the week, refused to comment.
Both times Flynn put the question to him, the PM looked confused.
Flynn’s call was barely picked up by the media – but it wasn’t designed to.
The idea was not to get coverage. It’s bad enough having the chaos of last week hanging over you, the last thing you want is Sunak to land even a halfway convincing punch with some jibe about the SNP.
None of this to suggest Flynn’s interest in Palestine is opportunistic or insincere. It just happens that sometimes conviction helpfully aligns with convenience.
For Flynn, it was mission accomplished.
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