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As with most members of the legal profession, Sir Keir Starmer would crawl through an open sewer to hear the sound of his own voice. No topic is too obscure, too arcane, on which he would happily hold court. Weighty matters of Human Rights jurisprudence, for example, or the finer points of the Equality Act. … Read more
Gwyneth at the 1999 Oscars. Gazza at Italia 90. To that list of lip- wobbling blubberers, we can now add the name of Matthew Hancock. With the arrival of the coronavirus vaccine, the Health Secretary was on Good Morning Britain yesterday to witness the first inoculations take place live on air. Of course he was! … Read more
Gwyneth at the 1999 Oscars. Gazza at Italia 90. To that list of lip- wobbling blubberers, we can now add the name of Matthew Hancock. With the arrival of the coronavirus vaccine, the Health Secretary was on Good Morning Britain yesterday to witness the first inoculations take place live on air. Of course he was! … Read more
Good grief, the Commons was tense yesterday. Tauter than the strings on a well-tuned ukulele. With Brexit trade talks hanging by the flossiest of threads over in Brussels, the House had that subdued air of a hospital waiting room. As each hour passed, the atmosphere grew antsier. Jokes and jibes were in short supply. Penny … Read more
Doubtless you are familiar with those disaster movies in which a doomed jet plane, engines aflame, spirals towards an unforgiving ocean. Cut to the cockpit where we find our pilot pawing helplessly at the controls. His teeth clenched, his eyes bulging. Sweat cascading down both cheeks. This is the face Downing Street handlers pull whenever … Read more
The Match of the Day pundits refer to football managers losing the dressing room. Boris Johnson is not in that zone quite yet, but looking around at some of the faces on the backbenches yesterday suggested he might not be far off. Not since the dying days of Theresa May has such a sour atmosphere permeated … Read more
And so came the tiers. There was no actual blubbing in the chamber when Matt Hancock announced his post-lockdown restrictions yesterday. Some Tory MPs looked jolly close to turning on the waterworks though. Blimey, were they cross! The Health Secretary had just announced that all of them – barring members for Cornwall, the Isles of … Read more
Rishi Sunak has developed a flinty side. Unveiling his spending review yesterday, he displayed a grave, gritty mien. Previous Sunak speeches have been sadder affairs – all puppy-dog eyes and regretful delivery. But this time he coarsened his voice and stiffened his brow. He seemed older, weightier, more substantial. High office has hardened him. There … Read more
Boris Johnson was moving through the gears nicely in the Commons yesterday as he laid out next week’s post-lockdown restrictions. There was a pep in his step. A swing to his swagger. Then as Mark Harper (Con, Forest of Dean) pushed the PM to provide the economic impact of his restrictions…zoiks! The PM was rendered … Read more
Cap’n Boris was in Nelson mode, but Keir Starmer couldn’t tell a blunderbuss from a bayonet: HENRY DEEDES watches Prime Minister unveil his defence spending plans By Henry Deedes for the Daily Mail Published: 22:29 GMT, 19 November 2020 | Updated: 22:30 GMT, 19 November 2020 Parp the horns, Cap’n. Bandmaster, a soaring rendition of … Read more