Gone were the usual smiles, smirks and ho-ho-hos. Instead, the Boris Johnson in the Commons chamber yesterday was suddenly a man fighting tooth and claw for his reputation.
A week of woeful headlines over his Downing Street flat’s refurbishment, not to mention an investigation by the Electoral Commission announced moments before, had clearly left him on the precipice.
On top of it all, Sir Keir Starmer had been needling and gnawing away at him like a jabbering woodpecker. Who had ‘initially’ paid for the work, he asked – five times. Enough was enough!
In the most explosive, gladiatorial PMQs of recent years, the Prime Ministerial lid eventually popped. Boris was boiling. Steaming. Raging.
Up he leapt, jabbing a podgy digit across the despatch box, shouting about how his government had delivered on the vaccine rollout and putting more bobbies on the beat, while all Labour had done was ‘twist and turn in the wind’ and ‘play political games’ over his home furnishings.
Gone were the usual smiles, smirks and ho-ho-hos. Instead, the Boris Johnson in the Commons chamber yesterday was suddenly a man fighting tooth and claw for his reputation
On top of it all, Sir Keir Starmer had been needling and gnawing away at him like a jabbering woodpecker. Who had ‘initially’ paid for the work, he asked – five times. Enough was enough!
The nose widened, the eyes blazed. His teeth were chomping so hard together he could have bitten right through a diamond. By the time he sat down, coils of smoke were practically rising from his head.
It was a session which was always gearing up that way. A high noon atmosphere stalked the chamber before we’d even begun.
Labour’s benches rippled with expectation as MPs exchanged billets-doux and suggested heckles to one another. Sitting in his usual back-row berth opposite the PM was Cardiff West’s Kevin Brennan, always a sure sign of trouble. He’s got a mouth on him like a bookie’s runner.
Starmer positioned himself early, scribbling pretend marks in the margins of his notes. Occasionally, he’d moisten his larynx with a pre-match gargle. Behind the Speaker’s chair lurked Boris.
With only his eyes visible through his mask, he reminded me of a confused cow being loaded on to a lorry to the slaughterhouse.
Sir Keir first asked the PM about comments he’s supposed to have made last October about seeing ‘bodies piled high’ rather than face another lockdown. Had he said it?
‘No,’ replied Boris, putting it firmly on the record. Starmer reminded us that any PM found misleading the House would have to quit. ‘Woooooooo,’ chorused Tory MPs. Sir Keir’s face flushed with irritation.
‘There’ll be further on this, believe me,’ he barked, reeling at their impudence. How dare they!
Sir Keir first asked the PM about comments he’s supposed to have made last October about seeing ‘bodies piled high’ rather than face another lockdown. Had he said it?
From there on in we were locked in a row over the cost of the PM’s decorating work. Boris insisted he had paid for the work personally. Unlike the Blair and Brown administrations, which spent £500,000 ‘tarting it up’, he said.
The key question here, though, and one Sir Keir kept asking, was who had ‘initially’ paid for it. Most suspect Tory donor Lord Brownlow stumped up the cash, which Boris repaid once he got rumbled.
Boris shook his head. He declared it bizarre that Labour had become so obsessed with his personal fixtures and fittings. It was ‘irrelevant to people’s lives’ while he was ‘delivering on people’s priorities’.
Starmer suggested Boris’s priorities seemed to be ‘nipping out of meetings to choose wallpaper at £840 a roll’.
Er, point of order there, Sir Keir. The idea of Boris doing his own shopping is laughable. Anyone who’s shared an office with him knows he’s incapable of fetching his own coffee.
Starmer then put it to the PM that Lord Brownlow originally paid for the redecorating. ‘I think I’ve answered this!’ Boris hollered. ‘No you haven’t,’ his opponents wailed.
Sir Keir laughed and caressed his heavily pomaded scalp. ‘Answer the question!’ he demanded. He accused the Government of doling out ‘dodgy contracts and jobs for their mates’.
‘And who is at the heart of it?’ he honked. ‘The Prime Minister. Major Sleaze, sitting there.’
Boris waved a languid paw dismissively as if to say: ‘Get over yerself.’
Things were so heated by the end of Boris’s subsequent tirade, his PPS, Alex Burghart, had to defog his spectacles.
Eventually, Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle was on his feet, flapping his arms and appealing for calm. Parliament prorogues this afternoon. Over at Number 10, some cooling off during that quiet period might be in order.
