BULLYING has been with us since the Bible told us we’d burn in the fiery furnace if we didn’t bow down before the biggest bully of all.

And it’ll be with us forever. When the first colonists go to ooter space there’ll be a bully among them. Today, it even exists in the Hoose o’ Commons, where the wisest and nicest people in the land congregate to ruin all our lives.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer raised the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, following the resignation of Sir Gavin Williamson as Minister Without Brains amid disturbing allegations.

Sir Keir got right intae ’um. He was “a pathetic bully”, “a sad middle-manager getting off on intimidating those beneath him”. Everybody knew such a person, said Sir K, and also “someone like the Prime Minister, the boss who is so weak, so worried the bullies will turn on him, that he hides behind them”. Ouchy!

 

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In an unusual example of statecraft, Williamson had told a civil servant to slit their throat. How must that person have felt, asked Sir Keir, when the PM expressed great sadness at their tormentor’s resignation?

Rishi Sunak, a prime minister, said bullying would be “dealt with properly”. By appointing the bully to the Cabinet. Instead of focusing on one individual, the PM was focused on the “whole country” and, you know, the economy, NHS, migration, yada with added yada.

Sir Keir said that, if brother Sunak couldn’t stand up to a “run of the mill bully” like Williamson, how would he fare against vested interests like Shell? Oh, and by the way, how much had they paid in windfall tax? (Answer: zilch).

Rishi: “He talks about working people. The right honourable member voted against legislation to stop strikers disrupting working people.” Er, note to PM: the strikers are working people. And they’re supported by other working people. It’s a working people thing.

Keir worked on Rishi some more. He was “too weak” to sack his security threat Home Secretary, “too weak” to stand for election as party leader, “too weak” to champion the aforementioned working people. That was the weak that was.

He was even too weak to stand up to “a cartoon bully with a pet spider”. This was another reference to comrade Williamson, who kept a Mexican tarantula called Cronus in a glass box on his desk, praising it as “a perfect example of an incredibly clean, ruthless killer”. So, not a nutter at all then.

I can’t think of a link between nutters and Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader, who foamed at the mooth aboot Scottish Secretary Arthur Wotsname being elevated to the Lords. Wotsname, he said, was “more interested in getting his hands on an ermine robe” than respecting democracy in Scotland, which would now be served by “a baron in waiting”.

Rishi couldn’t wait to tell Ian he’d be meeting Scotland’s First Minister today. Incidentally, following last week’s Caledonian rollercoaster, no other Scotch person got to speak yesterday. Interesting. Or perhaps not.

Following PMQs, we’d to suffer a statement from the PM about COP27, which Rishi tried to cop out of attending till his researchers told him the impending death of the planet was quite important. The statement was the usual bilge about Britain leading the way and – all together now –“delivering!” Yep, we’re Postman Pathetic to the world.

Sir Keir said that, if you wanted the PM to go somewhere, just “get the right honourable member for Uxbridge” – Johnson, B – “to go there first”. Even then, Rishi “had to be dragged kicking and screaming to even get on the plane”.

Rishi said Keir was talking “pie in the sky”, which reference brought a salivating Mr Blackford promptly to his feet, sniffing the air intently, as he urged the Government to spend lots of money abroad, like the nice, kind, virtuous Scottish Government. Pass the sick bucket.

 

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While on that subject, we should record for posterior that proceedings yesterday began with vomit. Neil Coyle, an Independent MP famed for rude language (while a Labour member he referred to Boris Johnson as a “dick” and Piers Morgan as a “scrote”) harked back to Covid’s height when, he said, the Conservatives had “partied their way through lockdown”.

Furore ensued, whereupon he told the fulminating benches opposite: “You can all go to eat kangaroo testicles for all I care.” Great bouncing balls! Unabashed, Neil continued: “Those Conservatives covered Downing Street in suitcases of wine, in vomit …”

And on that colourful note we end this account of yesterday in Parliament, and eagerly await to see what next week’s proceedings will throw up.

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