MR Speaker has had enough! Maybe the final straw was accidentally being called "Mr Crisis" by an overenthusiastic Prime Minister in full flow. We all know Boris Johnson likes to ramble, but this week it seems he’s arrived at the House of Commons directly from a hedge. Judging by his inability to even comprehend a housing question from one of his own colleagues, I’d suggest someone needs to start checking his ears for twigs and leaves shortly before noon.
He gets himself worked up into a right old tizzy when Ian Blackford has the nerve to ask about the 1.3 million children under five living in poverty in the UK, claiming “I don’t believe any government could have done more to help the people of this country during this pandemic”. Of course, he is being asked to do something more now – to make the £20 a week uplift to Universal Credit permanent and also extend it to legacy benefits. Extending the ban on evictions beyond this month might help too.
WATCH: Speaker silences Boris Johnson for trying to mock the SNP
Apparently his government “bitterly lament and reject the poverty that some families unquestionably suffer” and “will continue to support them in all the ways that we have set up”. Hmm, well one of those ways is the benefit increase – widely seen as a tacit acknowledgement that the previous levels were too low to live on – and yet week after week he refuses to confirm if those struggling the most need to brace themselves for a loss of £1000 a year.
Oh but wait, there’s more! He spies the opportunity for a rant about the Scottish Nationalist Party being too left-wing and wanting to hand out money instead of getting people into jobs. It’s almost a shame the Speaker interrupts to scold him – yet again – for this playground tactic, as I would have loved to hear more about how the SNP could be helping people to fill the massive bounty of job vacancies that is bound to exist after the furlough scheme ends.
It seems Johnson would rather not think ahead to that point, and why should he – isn’t that Rishi Sunak’s job? Why can’t these MPs contain themselves until the budget on March 3 instead of asking all these difficult questions? Keir Starmer was keen to point out that as Prime Minister, Johnson is in fact able to make decisions himself and could be providing some certainty to businesses now. Pah, says the PM. Labour stood on a manifesto to destroy capitalism, what do they care about business?
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Ah, but he walked right into that one. Starmer hasn’t forgotten that Johnson has changed his tune since the summer of 2018. He may say he wants to “back business” now, but he was using a different four-letter word back then. He didn’t so much want to put his arms around the business owners of the UK as put his … well, I’ll leave you to complete the boak-inducing mental image for yourself.
So what have we learned from this week’s PMQs? We don’t know when the furlough scheme will end, when the evictions ban will end, when the Universal Credit uplift will end, when business rates relief will end, or when English children will be going back to school. Marvellous.
Thank goodness, then, for Ian Liddell-Grainger, who despite his faultlessly courteous address of the Speaker is nonetheless bringing big Handforth Parish Council vibes with his passionate rebuke of Somerset County Council for allegedly spending Covid funds on things that have nothing to do with the pandemic. Big Ian reckons the whole of Somerset be looked after by Somerset, adding “We need a referendum down here to test public opinion quickly!” What a good idea. The PM agrees that it should be for the people to decide what form of government best meets their needs. How very refreshing!
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