Never change, Kemi, never change. We love you just the way you are. Look on the bright side: it could have been worse. KemiKaze could have used all six of her questions at prime minister’s questions to have re-examined the Tories’ very own rubbish Brexit deal. Just as she had for the previous two days. Mistakenly believing that this time – maybe, this time – she could find the killer line. It would have been too much to expect her to have realised there wasn’t one.
But no. Kemi chose to cut her losses. A triumph of sorts. Only the Tory leader then went on to snatch a humiliating defeat when all she had to do was tap the ball into the emptiest of nets.
Maybe she’s been taking lessons from the Spurs’ team this season. Please don’t mention the game tonight. Having returned my ticket to the club, I will be watching from behind the back of the sofa. The similarities don’t end there. Just like Big Ange Postecoglou, Kemi could be facing the sack in the near future. Enough is enough.
There again, maybe we should be applauding the unorthodox. The politician who breaks the mould of how a leader of the opposition should act. Kemi does things her own way. No one can teach her a thing. And God knows they have tried. But maybe you just have to sit back and applaud.
It takes a certain level of genius to be this abject. This hopeless. Especially when time and again you are the only person alive to think you have aced it. Kemi gets to redefine the word crap. New levels of great rubbishness. And I for one will miss her when she’s gone.
Keir Starmer couldn’t have made life any simpler for the Conservative leader. In an answer to a planted question from the Labour backbencher Sarah Owen, Keir made the loudest ofU-turns on winter fuel allowance paymentsright at the start of PMQs. Not that he called it a U-turn. More a totally planned change of heart, despite the fact he had spent much of the previous few months denying he had any intention of reversing the previous budget.
It was like this, he mumbled. Not even he believed what he was about to say. Just concentrate on getting the words out of his mouth in more or less the right order. Try not to think that the whole world might be thinking: “This must be a massive embarrassment for the government.”
So on he went. The economy was now in tip-top shape – don’t mention the inflation rate – so he had a bit more leeway. Time toincrease the threshold at which WFA could be claimed. Absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Labour backbenchers were kicking up rough and threatening the mother of all rebellions. Heaven forbid. Keir took a deep breath, thankful to have got the hard part over and done with. Just the pushback to deal with. Thirty minutes of eating shit.
Only the shit never came. Either Kemi hadn’t been listening or she reckoned that what Starmer had just said was no big deal. As if a U-turn was an everyday event. Yawn. Nothing to see here. The Tory backbenchers clasped their heads in their hands as KemiKaze stuck to her prepared script. When all she had to do was to tear up her notes and stick the knife into Starmer for 10 minutes. Wins wouldn’t have come any easier than that. Or sweeter.
Kemi began wittering vaguely about the economy and Starmer couldn’t believe his luck. He’d never imagined life could be quite this good. You spend your life wondering whether you are up to the job and are handed an opposition leader whose mission is to validate you. Kemi: The Accidental Therapist. Keir just went straight to default random answer one. Stop talking the country down. Everything was much better than it had been.
That all wasted a good five minutes or so. Halfway and no harm done to Keir. Then KemiKaze disappeared down the rabbit hole of the Telegraph front page which had revealed Angela Rayner had tried to get the chancellor to raise taxes on the wealthy. Starmer had to gently explain to her that Rayner’s taxes had not been implemented. Thinking something didn’t turn it into a reality. How could he put this nicely? The taxes he had raised were the taxes he had raised. Clear enough? Apparently not.
It took a rather desperate Chris Philp – is there another sort of Philpster? – to get Kemi’s attention. Had she noticed the prime minister had just done a major U-turn? “Shut up,” Kemi hissed. She was concentrating on not listening. But really, the Nose in Search of a Bum pleaded. Just ask. So she did. “Are you really planning to U-turn on WFA?” she asked, incredulously. Keir hummed. Er … Let’s put this into words of one syllable. It’s a small change. Not a U-turn.
“I’m making this really easy for you,” KemiKaze said. She wasn’t wrong. She couldn’t have been more accommodating toLabourif she tried. The government’s sweetheart. “Just look at the faces of the Labour backbenches,” she added.
Cue a break for two minutes’ laughter. Because the Labour MPs were ecstatic. They had got what they wanted. A climbdown on the WFA. Three trade deals in the bag. Something half decent to say to their constituents when they went home for the bank holiday weekend. It was the Tory benches where you could find total misery. A leader who had yet again let them down. Deprived them of their weekly happiness allowance once more. All that awaited them was more pain. Existential despair.
You could tell just how bad it was, because well before the end ofPMQsthe Tory press office had sent out a panicky WhatsApp to journalists. None of what we had seen with our own eyes had really happened. Kemi had absolutely aced it. She hadn’t missed the U-turn. Had just been waiting for the right moment. Everything was terrific. Kemi Rules OK! Long may she reign.