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British military bases were on high alert, bombs were falling on Tehran, an Iranian warship was being sunk off Sri Lanka... and in Westminster they started the day with a spot of ballroom dancing.
Forty MPs, led by Speaker Hoyle and Angela Rippon, took part in a morning waltz in the Portcullis House atrium.
The idea was to promote dance as a form of exercise. The more lasting echoes may have been of those poor musicians on the Titanic playing ‘Nearer, My God, To Thee’ as the Atlantic gushed through the portholes.
How should our parliamentarians respond to the Iran crisis? At PMQs, Sir Keir Starmer patronised Kemi Badenoch for being unstatesmanlike. Mrs Badenoch had nipped his ankles about defence spending and pricked him about being slow to send the Navy into action. Labour backbenchers tried to shout her down and interrupt her with a point of order. Mrs Badenoch yelled back that they were ‘a sea of orcs and goons’. Labour was ‘pathetic and weak’.
Orcs and goons? Hansard’s stenographers blinked a bit. The clerks consulted with one another, unsure what the term meant and whether or not it might be unparliamentary. The bawling Labour masses fell silent for a nano-second, and then went only wilder in their bellowing. A colleague on the press corridor thought orcs and goons sounded like a department store, maybe in 1950s Edinburgh.
'The idea was to promote dance as a form of exercise. The more lasting echoes may have been of those poor musicians on the Titanic playing as the Atlantic gushed through the portholes'
'Sir Keir Starmer, whose head becomes more oblong with each day of this emergency, insisted this was no time for partisan knockabout. He then indulged in exactly that sort of thing'
Sir Keir, whose head becomes more oblong with each day of this emergency, insisted this was no time for partisan knockabout. He then indulged in exactly that sort of thing by telling his opponent that ‘moments like this define a leader of the opposition – they can either step up, act in the national interest, and show they’re fit to be prime minister, or they can expose their utter irrelevance’. Cue wild cheers from his MPs and an expression of revolting priggishness on the face of a premier who in the last week has hardly covered himself in glory.
Should a leader of the Opposition really go soft on a PM during a military crisis? Iain Duncan Smith tried that approach with Tony Blair before the Iraq War. It did not do anyone much good. During the Covid pandemic Sir Keir did almost nothing to oppose the Johnson government’s crazily expensive lockdowns. He actually wanted them to go further. Again, the result was a disaster.
Having demanded consensus from Mrs Badenoch, Sir Keir duly laid into the Conservatives for their time in power – ‘14 years of destroying everything in this country’. Yes, everything. How punctilious the nasal knight is about not overstating the sins of our Iranian enemies, yet how easy he finds it to be hyperbolic about the Tories.
John Healey, Defence Secretary, chose not to sit next to Sir Keir. He watched proceedings instead from the bar of the House, the name given to that area near the Serjeant at Arms. Mr Healey was thus unable to prompt the PM when Mrs Badenoch asked about defence spending.
Mrs Badenoch had nipped at Mr Starmer's ankles about defence spending and pricked him about being slow to send the Navy into action
Security minister Dan Jarvis stepped up to the despatch box and disclosed that there had been three arrests connected with suspected Chinese espionage on politicians.
Rachel Reeves was there, though. She just shouted ‘absolute rubbish! absolute rubbish!’ Ed Miliband made a rare visit to PMQs. He shielded his eyes with one hand during the main exchanges. What oddities they are who lead us.
And then, immediately after PMQs, came a distinctly British angle to the geopolitics tensions: sex.
Security minister Dan Jarvis stepped up to the despatch box and disclosed that there had been three arrests connected with suspected Chinese espionage on politicians.
It was soon said that one of the suspects was married to a sitting Labour MP and one was associated with a former MP.
Mr Jarvis announced that parliamentarians and London think-tankers would now be offered advice sessions on how to avoid honey-traps. Oh, boy, those courses should be a hoot.
We used to talk of the need to beware reds under the bed. Now it’s reds in the bed. Little wonder the Palace of Westminster’s architectural roof finials have worked loose. Too much bouncy-bouncy!
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