Lloyd Evans

Double bubble at PMQs. With MPs leaving Westminster a week early, the Speaker ruled that two sessions of PMQs should rub up against each other. It was a full one-hour grilling. Boris adopted his ‘Britain in wartime’ pose. He heaped every questioner with praise and gave his answers with theatrical solemnity. Asked about testing-rates, he offered good news on their increasing frequency. ‘From 5,000 to 10,000 to 25,000.’ Trouble is, he said that last week.  Jeremy Corbyn complained that the healthcare supply association is so short of bio-hazard suits that it has to beg for donations on Twitter. Luckily Boris had just come from a meeting with someone in a uniform. ‘The army is now distributing the supplies to all the hospitals that need them, and 7.

Last week Britain was a free-market democracy. Now we’re living in a one-party state. The transition became clear at PMQs today where General-Secretary Johnson gave bland and reassuring replies to super-soft questions from tame MPs. The House was half empty. Members practised a sort of semi-self-isolation. They sat apart from each other by a distance of about four feet, or the width of Cyril Smith. The mood – one of hunched defiance – doesn’t suit the Commons which prefers a rowdy, combative carnival atmosphere. All political differences seem to have been cancelled. Previous sins are forgiven. Past idiocies forgotten. Jeremy Corbyn went into a U-turn on small businesses. For years he has threatened to bankrupt sole-traders by banning zero-hours contracts.

He began with a touch of statesmanlike solemnity about the pandemic. ‘The British people may be worried but they are not daunted. We will protect this country and our people. We will rise to this challenge.’ This was Rishi Sunak delivering his first budget. Many viewers will not have seen him give a sustained performance before. He’s young, lean, smiley, mild-mannered. His thick rug of hair is worn with a schoolboy's side-parting. Lots of teeth, oddly big ears. An ideal son-in-law type. But this isn’t the right look for a chancellor who should either resemble a mortician, (Stafford Cripps), or a voluptuary, (Nigel Lawson). His vocal delivery has some strangely familiar quirks. The posh-boy voice is relaxed and super-confident.

The PM defended his Home Secretary as opposition members tried to force her resignation, live on TV, at PMQs. Priti Patel, in a muted fuchsia dress, sat on the Treasury bench nestled snugly between Jacob Rees-Mogg and the Prime Minister. This casual arrangement cannot have been more deliberate. Here she is, announced the seating-plan, and here she stays. Jeremy Corbyn tried first. He demanded ‘an independent investigation into the home secretary’s conduct led by an external lawyer.’ He also wanted ‘a date when the findings will be made public.’ Boris ducked this blatantly. ‘The home secretary is keeping this country safe. She believes in stopping the early release of offenders... and introducing a points-based immigration system.

The floods got Jeremy Corbyn into a pickle at PMQs. The Labour leader started off by out-virtuing Boris. The PM had expressed sympathy with the victims of Storms Chiara and Dennis. Corbyn stood up. ‘My thoughts are with those suffering across the world with the corona-virus,’ he said tartly. He accused the PM of responding sluggishly to the inundations. Referring to an earlier crisis, he said, ‘I demanded that a Cobra meeting be called and [the Prime Minister] very reluctantly agreed.’ With the latest floods, Corbyn went on, he had once again ordered Boris to summon Cobra. But the PM had ignored the call. Why? Corbyn had his answer: ‘He doesn’t really care at all because there are no votes on the line at the moment.

Labour's leadership candidates were grilled by Newsnight’s Katie Razzall last night. Avuncular Sir Keir Starmer, with his greying thatch and bulky frame, looked like a body-builder gone to seed. He spoke in a bluff, commandeering tone that suggested the leadership is his already – and he knows it. His main rival, Rebecca Long-Bailey, seemed ill at ease. She’s an odd blend of qualities. She might have been named after a Jilly Cooper character but she has a Maoist habit of calling the voters ‘our communities.’ Her complexion is immaculate, her gaze unblinking, her blond hair perfect. ‘Pitiless’ is the only word for her dark, angular spectacles.

Things got pretty tasty at PMQs. Jeremy Corbyn was well prepared and emerged, messily, as the victor. It started badly for the Labour leader. Ironic cheers rang out when his name was called. Up he stood. But instead of building to a joyous climax, the cheers dropped to nothing. Stark silence followed. This seemed amusing and was greeted by facetious guffaws. Poor Jezza. Even his pauses are laughing at him. He brought up the 17 foreign-born criminals deported to Jamaica. A tricky case has emerged. A boy who arrived in Britain aged five, was coerced into peddling drugs and was given a jail-term. But since his release he hasn’t re-offended. ‘Does he deserve to be deported?’ asked Corbyn. ‘Entirely right,’ said the PM. Corbyn gloated.

Climate change dogged PMQs today. ‘We are at the eleventh hour to save the planet,’ announced Jeremy Corbyn grimly. The experts who warn of disaster have clearly caught the Labour leader’s ear. ‘Coastal flooding and crop failures could threaten political chaos,’ said Noel Brown, director of the UN Environment Programme. He added that a polar thaw could lift sea-levels by three feet within ten years. Mind you, he was speaking in 1989 so today’s crisis may not be as serious as some like to claim. Corbyn moaned about the upcoming climate change conference in Glasgow which is suddenly leaderless. Ex-minister, Claire Perry, has stepped aside from her role as conference president.

Remainers were there too. The first people I met at the Brexit Day festivities were opposed to the whole idea. I found them on Westminster Bridge, a man and his wife, posing with an EU flag. When the man spoke his voice faltered as if his pet spaniel had just died. ‘I married a German woman. I’ve been brought up to tolerate other cultures and lifestyles.’ I asked which of the many crises outlined by Project Fear would strike us first. ‘Economic slump,’ he said. Will Britain ever re-join? ‘Maybe in two generations.’ A couple with a toddler spotted the EU flag and joined us for a chat. They’d planned to enlist in a Remain Fightback Demo and were dismayed by the poor turnout.

Jeremy Corbyn has stopped asking questions at PMQs. The lecture-circuit now looms for the Labour leader, so he uses the Wednesday sessions to practise the Grand Orations he will soon be making to drowsy socialists in overheated conference-halls around the world. He’s unlikely to match the fees commanded by the world’s top lecture-stars, Tony Blair and Barack Obama. His performance lacks bounce or crackle. He’s incapable channelling either passion or excitement and he simply recites his bullet-points like a sleep-deprived Bingo-caller. And his jokes misfire. Today he opened with a gag about the presenter of Just A Minute who died yesterday, aged 96. ‘Mr Speaker,’ said Corbyn, ‘can we take a minute to pay tribute to Nicholas Parsons.