One day after announcing she was open to policy suggestions from Labour, the Maybot passed up the first opportunity to indulge in cross-party dialogue by choosing to dodge prime minister’s questions in favour of tapas with King Felipe of Spain. First secretary Damian Green didn’t look unduly bothered to be stepping in as understudy. It was comforting to know that nothing he did at PMQs could possibly be worse than any of his boss’s performances at the dispatch box in recent weeks.
With the Maybot out of action, the Labour leader was also obliged to sit out PMQs. The shadow foreign secretary was a more than willing deputy. This was Emily Thornberry’s chance to shine. Like Green, she had little to lose. Jeremy Corbyn may be a great campaigner but he’s not always the most nimble of thinkers at the dispatch box and his line of questioning can quickly get confused. Corbyn versus the Maybot frequently becomes a race to the bottom: albeit a race the Maybot invariably wins.
The resulting exchanges between the two stand-in stand-ups were quick-witted, good-natured and entertaining. Though ultimately not much more illuminating. Green was no better at explaining the government’s position on Brexit than the Maybot. Principally because it doesn’t have one. Or rather, it has several, each of which are equally useless. Thornberry began by hailing the Lions’ drawn rugby series against the All Blacks. In that spirit of British and Irish co-operation, perhaps the first secretary could say what the government planned to do about the Irish border if no deal with the EU could be reached.
Green smiled and looked at his notes, confident he had been briefed on this. Ah yes. This wasn’t an issue because the government was aiming to get the best deal for Britain and the best deal for Britain would be one in which the EU gave us everything we asked for. He widened his grin for good measure and sat down. That had told her.
Except it hadn’t. His reply might have been good enough for a Corbyn, who could be counted on to stick to his prepared script, but Thornberry was up for a scrap. She hadn’t asked what kind of deal the government hoped to get. She wanted to know what happened if there wasn’t a deal. Despite what the chancellor may have said about a bad deal being a very bad thing, the prime minister was still insistent that she was quite keen on no deal. So perhaps Green would like to have another go at answering the question?
He wouldn’t. All he was prepared to do was repeat that Britain wanted a good deal but wouldn’t be accepting any deal because that was the sort of thing the Labour party would do. Thornberry remarked that he must have missed the Tory memo on building cross-party consensus and tried to spell things out a little more clearly. The deal that the Conservatives thought they were going to get. Did he understand that bit? Green nodded. Thornberry gave a sigh of relief. That was something. So what did not getting that deal entail in practical terms?
Green looked desperate. Couldn’t he talk about the unemployment figures instead? They might be going up by one fairly shortly when the Maybot is moved on, but the overall trend was promising. Thornberry shook her head, determined to keep him focused. If he couldn’t say what no deal looked like, could he say whether there was a contingency plan in case there was no deal, as various members of the government seemed to have very differing views on this?
Now it all became rather meta. There was a contingency plan, Green insisted. It was a contingency plan not to have a contingency plan. Then it became pure quantum physics. The prime minister would be able to simultaneously stomp out of the negotiating room with no deal and rush back in demanding transitional arrangements. Schrodinger’s Brexit.
“I’m optimistic we will get a deal because ... ” Green paused. He was optimistic because he was an optimistic kind of guy. He had seen the future and it looked good. Friends didn’t call him Psychic Damian for nothing. Or at all. “We have started the negotiations and they are going well.” That wasn’t how Michel Barnier had described them earlier in the day. Clueless was what he had called the Brits.
Still, Damian wasn’t bothered. He was done. Being prime minister for the day was way above his pay grade. The real problem was it was also well above the Maybot’s. And everyone else’s in the Tory party.
Article source:yahoo.com
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