Three memorable Commons performances contrasted with one stinker. The good ones came from David Blunkett (Lab, Sheffield Brightside), Sir Menzies Campbell (Lib Dem, NE Fife) and Julian Lewis (Con, New Forest E).
The less elevated effort emanated from Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls. Bawls, he should be called.
The first three spoke in the Queen’s Speech Debate which – despite my duff assertion here yesterday – will finish today.
Normally a Queen’s Speech debate includes a day on foreign affairs and defence but the Opposition, which guides such things, did not seem keen on those matters being discussed. Instead we had a day’s debate on the ‘cost of living’.
Speaker Bercow, perhaps recognising this topic as a shallow political stunt, allowed MPs to make diversions on to foreign policy nonetheless.
Mr Lewis, mocking the day’s chosen focus, said that he trusted his speech would be in order if he began by saying the words ‘cost of living’ and then moved to the more serious matter of war in Syria. The Chair did not demur.
Mr Lewis, limited to a few minutes, spoke with urgency about the realpolitik of the Syria question. Was it wise to seek to replace one ‘shocking regime’ with something which might be just as bad, but which we had armed?
He cited that old Lenin expression about the capitalists being hanged by the rope they had sold the mob. Might a successor to Syria’s current ruler, Mr Assad, not lean towards Al Qaeda? Do we want Al Qaeda placing its murderous hands on Assad’s chemical weapons? Gulp.
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Mr Lewis put these points with elasticated vowels and deep reading. He does not shout. What he does is raise troubling possibilities with the air of a driving instructor gently suggesting to the novice that crossing a mini-roundabout at 70mph might be unwise. His is not the most honeyed of voices – you would not want it reading you a bedtime story – but Mr Lewis has become a distinct presence on the green benches.
Speaker Bercow, perhaps recognising this topic as a shallow political stunt, allowed MPs to make diversions on to foreign policy nonethelessMr Blunkett spoke up for immigration, attacking ‘the politics of blame and resentment’ which he discerned in Coalition policies on welfare and Europe.
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Mr Blunkett said that recent claims by Lord Mandelson about Labour’s record on immigration were ‘risible’. As they say at Wimbledon, ‘Mr Mandelson to serve’. Sir Ming similarly spoke with a serious desire to persuade. His topic was the stability of the Coalition which, he argued, was essential to the stability of our economy. This was the predominant duty of the Lib Dem and Tory parties at present.
Again, he was heard with respect.
Respect is not a word you can apply to Mr Balls. At Treasury Questions he sat on his bench heckling a Government Whip called Greg Hands (even though Mr Hands was not saying a word). When Treasury minister Greg Clark was at the despatch box, Mr Balls larked about saying that he wanted the other Greg to speak. Mr Balls’s sidekick, Chris Leslie, kept looking at his boss with adoring, sparkly eyes.
He guffawed at Mr Balls’s jokes. He joined in the teasing of Mr Hands. It was the classic behaviour of the bully’s little mate.
When Mr Balls had a chance to speak at the despatch box he made a coarse, blunt, self-interested attack on the Treasury Chief Secretary, Danny Alexander, over the Coalition’s Europe policy.
On the (for him) inconvenient matter of the recent revival in the British economy, Mr Balls merely sneered that this was ‘the slowest economic recovery for 100 years’. Of the ‘triple dip’ and the ‘double dip’ – which never happened but which used to be his frequent bleating, bloated refrains – we heard nothing.
The man is a scowling, hyperbolic, ham-fisted oaf. Can Ed Miliband not see this?