IT’S all them and us nowadays. Scotland and England. Rich and poor. Men and whatever.
In particular, the class divide is back with a vengeance. It’s like being in the 1980s. Workers protesting. The rich quaffing champagne.
Accordingly, it was apt that Boris Johnson, your Prime Minister, arrived in the House of Commons chamber amidst a Tory backbencher’s call for a Margaret Thatcher Day. If they made that a holiday in Scotland, everyone would insist on going to work.
Work. What is it good for? Being taxed, that’s what. At Prime Minister’s Questions, opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer cast doubt on the Tories’ claim of being tax-cutting, urging the PM: “Cut the nonsense and treat the British people with a bit of respect.”
Boris in my daydream: “Good call! Never thought of that.”
Boris in reality: “This is the Government that … yada-yada … biggest cut in fuel duty ever … biggest cut in tax for working people in the last 10 years … ” Yada and an extra helping of yada.
The Tories, retorted Sir Keir, were the party of massive oil and gas profits, which they refused to tax, while Labour were “the party of working people”. Yes, them. The hungry spectres at the feast.
Then we came to the meat: “Talking of parties, Prime Minister.”
Ah-ha, that old well-gnawed bone. Sir K said Boris had told the Hoose that no rules had been broken in Downing Street during lockdown. But: “The police have now concluded there was widespread criminality.”
So: “The ministerial code says that ministers who knowingly mislead the House should resign. Why's he still here?”
But where else would he be? It was Wednesday. It was ten past twelve. Bit early for a snifter.
Instead, Mr Johnson drank deeply at the well of, er, meteorology, describing Mr Starmer as a “human weather vane”, or cock, who said one thing one week and another the next. Yeah, that’s kinda how it works.
This week, Mr S said the PM couldn’t just “pass off criminality” – could, you know – and asked: “When is he going to stop taking the British people for fools?”
I think you’ll find that’s his job description in the ministerial code, mate.
Accordingly, Boris brought things back to essentials: “The difference between them and us is that they want to keep people on benefits, we want to help people into work …”
Them and us. Yep, that’s what it’s all about. It’s what binds us together. For richer (Con), for poorer (Lab), on benefits and in health service.
Talking of health (mental), we thought the last chicken of sanity had flown Boris’s coop when he started talking about “unicorns”. Britain was heaving with them, according to our PM. There were now at least 120, “more than [in] France, Germany and Israel combined”.
Is that good? Well, maybe, defined as they are as “tech companies worth more than a billion dollars”. Fine. Let’s just hope they don’t leave piles of pixelated poop all over the place.
The SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford highlighted the great class divide, painting a picture of families huddled round the calculator trying to figure out how they could afford the energy price hike, while “Tory MPs were gathering across the street for a champagne bash in the Park Plaza”.
Cue hullaballoo, causing Mr Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, to tell one Tory ultra: “Mr Fabricant (nutty-haired Michael of that ilk)! Easter is upon us. I don’t need you to ruin your Easter. So let’s hear SNP leader Ian Blackford.”
Hear? Here? “We all know that the Tories partied during lockdown. And now they’re partying through the cost of living emergency,” added Mr B.
Boris deployed his usual tactic of making common tubby cause with Ian, noting: “He is, like me, a living testament to the benefits of moderation in all things.” Cue loud Tory laughter.
They weren’t laughing when Labour punning funster Matt Western averred: “It must be hard for the Prime Minister to stay in touch with financial reality given that donors and friends pay for flights and holidays … And we also have a $200,000,000 Chancellor who is so out of touch he’s contactless.”
This referred to Rishi Sunak’s cock-up at the till when trying to pretend he was an ordinary person in a supermarket.
You ask: “Was there another hullaballoo, Roberto?” Yes, amazingly, there was. Mr Speaker: “Shut up and be quiet! Behave yourselves!”
And, on that wise note, we leave our leaders to their Easter hols.
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