Freedom Day on 19 July was the opening issue at PMQs. Boris welcomed the return to normality and the Labour leader offered to support a ‘balanced and reasonable’ end to lockdown. But he accused the government of being ‘reckless’. Hang on, cried Boris, Sir Keir was all in favour of Freedom Day last Monday. Can’t he make up his mind?
Sir Keir tried to re-baptise the ‘Delta strain’ the ‘Johnson variant.’ Which is unwise politics. After trying the new label once he dropped it. Perhaps a pushy intern had suggested it.
Neither leader scored a victory today. Ian Blackford of the SNP complained that the new voter-ID reforms will lead to rigged elections and a system where, ‘the government chooses voters rather than the voters choosing the government.’
A good line. Blackford’s tragedy is that he can’t isolate a killer-quote like that from his weekly cascade of verbosity. He’s like a broken fruit machine that keeps spewing plastic tokens from its gob.
Ian Blackford’s tragedy is that he can’t isolate a killer-quote like that from his weekly cascade of verbosity
Backbench questions were better.

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