We may need Monsieur Poirot. On a day the Prime Minister descended to panicky slander, MPs were told that former transport secretary Louise Haigh vanished only after ‘further information came forward’ about her bad behaviour. So said Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs.
Kemi Badenoch, leading the interrogation: ‘What was that further information?’
Sir Keir, primly: ‘I’m not going to disclose private conversations. Further information came to light and the transport secretary resigned.’
Opposition MPs: ‘Ah-ha!’
When a prime minister accepts or precipitates the loss of a young woman from His Majesty’s Government – a demure, sensitive maid, hair as fair as a bowl of borscht – can it be really termed a ‘private’ matter?
Particularly if it concerned the police and, cough, a matter of fraud? Or is this a riddle to merit investigation by Agatha Christie’s little Belgian sleuth?
Mrs Badenoch, like Chief Inspector Japp, only progressed so far. She required assistance. Maybe a teaspoon more of vulgarity, too. Kemi may be just a little too high-falutin’.
Of Ms Haigh, there was no sight in the Commons. It has been this way since dawn last Friday when her political demise broke on a shocked Westminster. In vain did one search the Labour benches for her cheery vermilion barnet. Vanished. Quite vaporised. Has furtive Sir Keir hidden the corpse?
Ms Haigh’s successor, Heidi Alexander, was much in evidence, mind you. She was on the Government bench sitting beside, and partly on top of, Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall.
At the end of proceedings an orderly arrived with a spatula to scrape Ms Kendall off the bench. One egg sandwich crushed by a steam roller. V flat.
Three times Mrs Badenoch questioned Sir Keir about the Mysterious Affair of Ms Haigh. This did not please Labour MPs. ‘Shame!’ squawked a voice near Sharon Hodgson (Lab, Washington & Gateshead S). Mrs Badenoch was breaking a Westminster rule: that Labour MPs, please, are pure and noble and above suspicion. Only Tories are permitted to be sleazy.
Sir Keir hated being asked about the Haigh affair. His tone went all tight and turkey-voiced. Rachel Reeves sank in her seat as low as someone driving an Austin Healey. Angela Rayner, whitening, looked cross enough to bite the head off a gerbil.
When Mrs Badenoch produced (groan) the old line about how ‘we need conviction politicians not politicians with convictions’ it was Ms Rayner who leaned in to Sir Keir and, I think, prompted his ill-judged slander: he told the Tory leader that ‘two of her predecessors had convictions for breaking the Covid rules’.
A zinger? Labour MPs certainly gave it a cheer. Except, eek, it was not true. It was once of those gibes that, like certain fireworks, bounce off the ground and chase up the inside of your trouser leg until they explode next to your underpants.
As the nasal knight must have known – he was, lest you forget, a top lawyer – Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were not convicted. They received fixed penalty notices, which ain’t criminal. Oops.
In the circus of the Commons this did not instantly matter but beyond the chamber it will be pursued. As we say in the trade, it will ‘give the story legs’. It also showed that Sir Keir, when under pressure, cracks like a walnut.
The other notable development at PMQs was a renewal of Labour unease about winter fuel payments now that the Scots Nats are saying that north of the border they will restore the subsidy removed from old people by Ms Reeves.
When Kirsty Blackman (SNP, Aberdeen N) mentioned this, Sir Keir laughed. Something similar happened when Pete Wishart (SNP, Perth) made the same point; he was heckled by a cackling Graeme Downie (Lab, Dunfermline).
Shockat Adam (Ind, Leicester S) said pensioners in his area were frightened of the cold weather. Cue jeering and eye-rolling from Satvir Kaur (Lab, Southampton Test).
You did not need to be M. Poirot to discern a certain performative arrogance underlaid by anxiety.
