I’ll be honest I don’t have much sympathy for Conservative MPs, but today I felt something for them. It wasn’t strong enough to call it a feeling, more of a pang, I’d say.
A new Brexit report has shown the project has been a complete failure, with Parliament’s spending watchdog concluding that the “only detectable” impact of the UK’s divorce from the EU so far is “increased costs, paperwork and border delays”.
Add to that a National Insurance rise which has come under constant fire, levelling up promises that have led Rishi Sunak’s top aide to conclude that Northerners should ‘accept lower wages’ and spiralling energy costs many Tory MPs must be thinking, what can go wrong next?
Well, their fears were answered halfway through today’s Prime Minister’s Questions when Labour MP Fabian Hamilton raised the release of a photo showing the PM at a Christmas party surrounded by Champagne.
He contrasted the merriment to a constituent who was unable to have visits from her family while having cancer treatment.
Bear in mind this is a party that, after seeing the picture, the police didn’t think was worth investigating. It does make you wonder what is the point of the Met. A video of the PM booting Larry the Cat on the steps of Downing Street wouldn’t get him charged.
Sunak the fraud apologist
Today Starmer went after the chancellor as well, calling him a loan shark who doesn’t think fraud is a crime. There was much laughter when the PM said he despises fraudsters. Self-loathing is not something the PM suffers from.
Johnson also refused to say whether Guto Harri, who lobbied the government on behalf of Huawei, has received full security checks before his rushed appointment to Downing Street. Surely this lot can’t still call themselves the party of law and order. It’s one big party constantly breaking the law and creating disorder.
So what was the PM going to do about the energy crisis, he was asked numerous times. BP and Shell have posted billions of pounds in profit (doubt they would refer to this period as a crisis) and the PM told the house a windfall tax would only serve to ‘clobber’ them. Well, good! They have the deepest pockets of all.
Instead, Sunak decided to pick the nation’s pockets by lending them £200 to cover energy bills then demanding it back.
We are now in debt to the government for money we have paid them in taxes. Get your head around that!
Drink more to get sober
So what is the PM, who lectured other world leaders for their lack of green credentials, going to do about the energy crisis? Well, extract more gas to go green. He actually said that. Drink more to get sober is not a phrase used very often in AA meetings.
To top it all off Natalie Elphicke, an MP in Kent, told the house that the Dover traffic jams are simply not good enough. However, she said it wasn’t due to Brexit, but due to Brussel’s bureaucracy and ‘red tape.’ That issue couldn’t be any more to do with Brexit if it tried!
Ahh now I know what that sympathy pang was, I’m starving. It was hunger, not sympathy I was feeling. That’s a relief.
It’s Johnson’s hunger for power and lack of sympathy for working people that show no signs of wearing off.
Related: PMQs – PM facing his Waterloo as he begs his MPs to ‘take a chance on me’ again