Everything was set for a crushing Labor triumph. Starmer’s drama. The first questions of the Prime Minister after Boris Johnson were left badly wounded after 148 of his deputies spoke out against him in a vote of confidence.
A time of extreme weakness, when The Convict’s weak grip on his band could be brutally exposed. And you can feel that the occasion has reached Johnson.
Standing behind the speaker’s chair before PMQ began, he looked unusually sharp, bouncing from foot to foot absently as he ruffled a toddler’s hair. A man who desperately wants to be somewhere other than here in the City Hall.
There was applause from his own side as he took his place on the front bench, though it sounded violent and unconvincing. The Tory party is not so good at unity and learns the hard way how hard it is to falsify in order to succeed.
Loud applause came from the bench. They feel like they finally have Johnson right where they want him. Leader of a lame duck, without the trust and unusualness of a country that is tired of the constant flow of lies and broken promises. Joker with the face of Janus, whose deed was seen. Whose punishment is to keep failing.
Labor’s Angela Eagle has done well for her leader. Now we knew how much the Convict hated him. And that was only within his party. If 148 of his deputies no longer trust him, why someone else? Johnson forced his bloodshot eyes open and exploded.
He has had a long political career, he said before recovering. Just in case anyone might think it means they have been washed. “Actually, I just started.” Several of his own deputies swallowed this. The only way many of them tolerate Johnson’s remaining in office is by believing that his term is severely limited in time – that sometime before the next election, he will automatically self-destruct.
Except Johnson really believes that. He imagines himself to be one of the immortals. The best political converter. The exceptional. His current spell at number 10 may end next year, but there is nothing to stop him from rediscovering himself.
So you didn’t like his first incarnation as prime minister? Do not worry. He can easily give you a different. He will be what you want him to be. There is no principle or person to which he is attached. As with all true narcissists, his only loyalty is to himself.
The convict continued. The only reason he had so many political enemies was because he had achieved so much. In fact, he would not rest until his entire party turned against him, because that would mean that he had achieved stunning success.
It was really a delusion. The kind of thinking that divides ordinary people for their own benefit. We are truly blessed to have a leader so detached from the real world. They hate him because he did so little, not because he did so much. In almost three years, he has achieved almost nothing. Except I go to some parties. And lie about them.
Here the prime minister was expelled. Deconstructed destruction. Just say any old nonsense you can think of. Sentences started but never completed. The arrogance of a man who believes he is one of the best minds of his generation, exposed as half-wit.
All Kier Starmer had to do was intervene and carry out the coup of grace. To laugh at the Tories’ benches for the cross they had made for themselves. Now they were committed to Johnson — mainly because the talent pool was so dry that no one had the IQ to imagine another leader — and they were doomed to be dragged along. The convict was their problem. Only theirs.
And yet somehow – even when he was placed with the most open goals – Starmer still managed to miss. He looked and sounded distracted. Pauses longer than an old tesp in repetition. It was almost as if his mind was elsewhere.
This made one wonder if he had just heard bad news from Durham police. It would be the greatest irony if the result of Partygate was that Starmer lost his job. Although you feel that some Labor MPs may not be completely concerned. They long for a leader with little advantage. Who can sprinkle donkey work with stardust.
Starmer made several references to The Convict’s downturn before moving to the NHS. Here he was on stronger ground, though his interrogation was still somewhat vague. It was as if he wanted to make sure Johnson wasn’t hurt too much. That he was more valuable to Labor while he was still in office. If so, Starmer is smarter than he looks.
Where are the 48 hospitals Johnson promised? You will be lucky to find an A&E department that has been painted. People were dying in anticipation of cancer treatment. Where were the doctors?
How about Netflix NHS? Did this mean transplantation of an open heart surgery TV as paying for a checkup? Or Deathwatch – Sajid Javid’s answer to Springwatch – in which you could bet on the first person to die in a geriatric ward?
Then there was Nadine Doris’ confession that the health service was completely unprepared for the pandemic. The secretary of culture was very excited when her name was mentioned, and tried to shout first that she had never tweeted destroying Jeremy Hunt, and then that she might have, but didn’t want it taken so badly. seriously, because she really wanted to tell Boris how much she loved him. “Everything I do) I do it for you.”
Johnson was silent when Starmer told of a man whose mother had died waiting for an ambulance, but he really wasn’t that worried. What does someone else’s death have to do with him? Instead, he began to mutter about how well the economy was doing. This will be the economy that the OECD was down as the second slowest in the G20. In second place after Russia. Top news everywhere.
The longer the PMQ lasted, the more optimistic The Convict became. It was as if he knew he had avoided a bullet and was determined to enjoy the moments he had left. He must have been like that in the Oxford Union. Arrogant, out of touch, unbearable. He waved his hands contemptuously at questions he didn’t like, and simply made promises he would never keep on his own benches.
Meanwhile, Johnson just keeps going. Lost to the world. Lost from his party. Lost for myself. So, we would, boats upstream, constantly transported back to the past.
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