PMQs sketch: Goodbye to old Hat
Harriet Harman’s final prime minister’s questions showed off her best qualities. She is far better at the sharp-elbowed jibe than the full-frontal assault.
All present knew that the acting leader of the opposition’s days in the job are numbered. This is not because she is about to be brutally ousted, like Iain Duncan Smith, or because she is about to win an election, like David Cameron (sort of). It is because the strenuous interminable, never-ending Labour leadership campaign finally comes to an end on September 25th.
Politicians are extraordinarily adept at choosing how snide to be. From the brown-nosing of local party figures (snide = bad) to the raucous to-and-fro of parliamentary debate (snide = essential) they pitch their behaviour on a sliding scale of unpleasantness. Today’s PMQs provided a stern test: scoring political points, but being thoroughly nice about it, is a subtle art.
What followed was like an elaborate Jane Austen-esque dance. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a prime minister in possession of a huge fiscal deficit is in want of a leader of the opposition on which to blame everything. So Cameron, having begun with a Darcy-style insult about the “height of irresponsibility” of ex-ministers encouraging the unions to strike, quickly entered into the amiable spirit of things as he and his dancing partner went through the moves.
Cameron was all attentiveness as Harman noted the loss of his father and congratulated him on the birth of his daughter. The PM responded graciously, thanking her for her “kind words” before noting her number was up. “She’s the third Labour I’ve had to do battle with… and she’s by far the most popular.” That got a big laugh from the Tory spinsters sitting on the sidelines, but fortunately Harman had a reply: “It’s just as well I’m not wearing a hoodie.” The prime minister for hugs beamed happily across at her as Labour spinsters (who invited them?) cackled inappropriately.
It was a graceful, elegant process, a seamless transition from dainty compliments to tainted barbs. Harman was pestering Cameron with calls for the government to adopt an EU directive targeting the trafficking of women and girls for sex. Every time she stepped forward, he stepped back. “Will he reconsider?” she advanced. The directive “doesn’t go any further than the law we’ve already passed,” Cameron replied. Harman spelled the problem out. “He’s hanging back on this, he should step forward and sign it. And stop stepping on my feet!”
Maybe not that last part. In fact the reality was nearly as ridiculous, as the prime minister raised the level of debate by claiming the last government “signed far too many things”. Probably best to avoid that sort of behaviour, he suggested. Harman said she was “disappointed”.
Never before have two people disagreed more in such placid and meek fashion. If all wars were like this there would be much less suffering in the world.
The two-step was not quite over, for Harman had one more question to ask “before I go”. After the wails of sarcastically sad Tories had subsided she wondered whether Cameron might like answering questions in PMQs twice a week, rather than the present once. After snubbing her intervention he got in a final dig, noting that Harman gets four votes in the Labour leadership election.
“Democracy is a beautiful thing,” he finished with a flourish. Nick Clegg, who in addition to owing his current position as deputy PM to voters’ indecisiveness is also plotting to reshape the entire country’s electoral system, nodded enthusiastically by his side.
