The grownups are back in Westminster. The Tory psychodramas inside No 10 have been replaced by a serious Labour government focused on delivery. It’s going to take time for all of us to make the adjustment. Except, time is the one thing Keir Starmer is not going to allow his new cabinet. He knows that the only way to win over those who didn’t vote for him last Thursday is to make an immediate difference. These days even a landslide majority is no guarantee of a second term.
Even so, Jonathan Reynolds, the new business and trade secretary, would probably have liked more than 40 or so hours to get his feet under the desk before being sent out on to the Sunday morning politics shows. I mean, he probably hasn’t even worked out where the nearest toilet is in his department yet.
But there is no rest for the winners, and Trevor Phillips and Laura Kuenssberg seemed genuinely bewildered that he didn’t have clear answers to every problem Britain faces. What the hell had Reynolds been doing on Saturday? Clearly, masterminding a penalty shootout win in the Euros was not enough. How quickly we take a new government for granted.
After a half hearted “how does it feel to be called secretary of state?” – no need to answer, Jonny – Phillips cut to the chase. Tony Blair had written a 1,500-word agony aunt column for the Sunday Times giving Starmer advice, in which he had said Labour must deal with immigration.
Almost as if the former prime minister was a bit narked that someone had got a majority to match his own. Bitter, moi? Perish the thought. Tone had suggested introducing electronic ID cards. At which you began to suspect that he had a financial interest in the AI needed for their development. He’s never been averse to making himself rich. So what was the new government’s plan?
Reynolds tried to take it all in his stride. New government, new candour. It was almost as if cabinet ministers had been instructed to try to answer the questions. Nothing Blair could say would ever be unhelpful, he said. Though he could have been a lot more helpful.
It was like this. The prime minister would be looking very hard at both legal and illegal migration through the prism of the jobs market. Which sounded much more sensible than anything we had heard in the last few years. Though he became rather more vague about ID cards. It was early in the morning and no one had told him what the government line on this was. An hour or so later, he would categorically rule out ID cards in a radio interview. No one could say the new government didn’t get things done quickly.
We moved on to Brexit and freedom of movement. Just don’t call it freedom of movement. There would be a renegotiation of some of the barriers to trade. Just all done on a nod and a wink. Whatever it takes. Watch this space. Over on the BBC, Kuenssberg wanted to know how he was going to sort out the ongoing dispute at the steelworks in Port Talbot. Quickly, said Reynolds, without giving much away. Though not quickly enough for Laura. She sounded as if she was already disappointed in the new government.
Then to the election itself. How could Labour say it had a mandate when it had only won about 35% of the vote? Both Phillips and Kuenssberg said this as if it was somehow Labour’s fault rather than a consequence of the first-past-the-post system. As if Starmer was personally at fault for having adopted a strategy of trying to win as many seats as possible.
Still, it would have been fun if Reynolds had said: “You know what? You’re quite right. No one should be in government for the next five years on the basis of last Thursday’s results. What the country had voted for was for No 10 to remain empty for the next five years with nobody doing anything at all. Let the UK burn.” Instead he quite reasonably observed that people had wanted the Tories out and that voters who had backed Reform knew they were likely to get a Labour government and were quite happy with that.
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Next up on Kuenssberg’s show were Victoria Atkins and Robert Jenrick. It’s not often that you get one-sixtieth of the Tory parliamentary party on the programme at once. So that was quite the coup for the BBC. And why not? While the Labour party is hellbent on being serious, we mustn’t all lose our sense of humour. So thank God for the Conservatives for providing us with this comedy duo. The idea of a prolonged Tory leadership campaign will be the gift that keeps on giving – to me, at any rate – over the coming months. Maybe it will go on for years. The idea of the Tories uniting behind anyone is a category error.
Vicky and Honest Bob were adamant they hadn’t agreed to appear on the show because they planned to stand for leader. Absolutely not. That had been the last thing on their minds. They would never have dreamed of coming on if that had been the case.
No, the reason they were on was because they wanted to be able to look voters in the eye and say: “Thank you for not choosing us last Thursday. We always wanted to be humiliated because we had betrayed your trust, so from the bottom of our hearts we are grateful for what you have done.” Which was weird because only last week I could have sworn both had been insisting that the Tories were the only party who could be guaranteed to deliver on their promises.
“I’m here to show the country that I understand,” said Atkins. VOTE FOR ME. VOTE FOR ME. “We need to focus on our values.” Just as soon as they’ve discovered what those values are. Assuming they still have any. Honest Bob was hilarious. Someone should give him his own sitcom. Seldom has someone more obviously useless rated himself so highly. “In politics, you lose as a team,” he said. Just marvellous. From the man who had resigned from Rishi Sunak’s government at the turn of the year for it not being sufficiently rightwing. The only team he has ever been on is his own. And that of the pornographer Dirty Des when there’s planning permission to be granted.
Over on Sky, Phillips was lamenting that no Tory MP would come on his show. Clearly, Atkins and Honest Bob had suddenly taken their lack of leadership ambitions very seriously. Trevor had to make do with Nadhim Zahawi. Neither he nor Phillips could work out why he was on. The never-ending existential crisis for most ex-Tory ministers. So they both sat down to fill out his tax form. Just to make sure there were no mistakes this time round.