Gags but no solutions

The front benches were packed yesterday for the Queen's Speech debate. Or at least the government benches were. The Chief Secretary of the Treasury was reduced to a sliver of a man, seated sideways, shoulders hunched, as were many of his colleagues. With one notable exception—Eric Pickles was seated proudly, arms crossed, knees at shoulder width. The Labour benches looked less full.

The first piece of business was the swearing-in of a new MP. Emma Lewell-Buck won the recent South Shields by-election, which was triggered by the resignation of David Miliband. Labour’s new MP stepped forward and recited the oath. It was a refreshing and excellent thing to hear from her accent that the new member for South Shields is of that area, rather than being a parachuted metropolitan central office pick.

Housekeeping from the Speaker was followed by a speech by Peter Luff (Cons, Mid Worcs), who made some good jokes about his career in politics, which is soon to come to an end. "I have just conducted my first rebellion," he said proudly. "An abstention." The roof caved in with the laughter. A chillier moment came when Luff mentioned his days at Windsor Grammar School, which was taken by the opposition benches as a barbed reference to the PM, whose own school was adjacent to Windsor. But on Luff went, his delivery at times somewhat garbled, on a merry tour of subjects including the possibility that the Archers is set in his own county of Worcestershire. "AMBRIDGE, AMBRIDGE," bellowed enraged members from all corners.

There then followed a similarly jovial speech from Steven Williams (Lib Dem, Bristol W) whose speech touched upon Butlins, albeit briefly, before taking on the subject of the PM's hair and the question of whether he (Williams) preferred the music of Duran Duran to that of Abba. Eventually he plumped for Abba, before moving on to the more serious grounds of gay marriage—his own, that is. Or lack of it. "I am still waiting for my own Prince Charming," he said, at which the house sighed, cloyingly.

Then came Ed Miliband. The strange thing about Miliband is that he does the humour much better than the serious stuff. It really ought to be the other way round. His gag about the two Peter Luffs (one is the MP, the other is involved elsewhere in politics) and the letter from a constituent that ended: "We know there are two Peter Luffs and we don't like either of you," was rather good. Well delivered also.

But then the tone switch was flicked, and the house heard the words: "does the government understand the difficulties the people of this country face?" And: "the government has a reality problem." It is much less imaginative stuff than his joke lines. And rather unfortunately, several MPs from the government benches threw in questions about his recent appearance on Radio 4, during which he was backed into a corner on the subject of borrowing. Jacob Rees-Mogg (Cons, NE Somerset) stood up and put the question to him once more: if he were in office, would the leader of the opposition have to borrow more to pay for his plans? Just as on Radio 4, Ed did not answer. The government benches mooed their disapproval of this dodging and weaving.

But then came a moment of rather alarming piquancy from Miliband. Rees-Mogg, he pointed out, was now calling for a Conservative alliance with Ukip. "Deputy Prime Minister Farage?" shouted Miliband, jabbing a finger at Nick Clegg. The house momentarily assessed the attractiveness of this possibility. A hit for Ed—who then slid down a familiar slope of roundly bad-mouthing the government record on banking, on immigration and the economy, which are somewhat shaky ground for the Labour Party. The words "pot", "kettle" and "black" suggested themselves.

He then summoned up the name “Lynton Crosby,” the PM's new master of the dark arts, whom Miliband said was responsible for scuppering plans to remove all branding from tobacco products. He shall now be known as, "Lynton Crosby, who worked for big tobacco." The opposition benches liked this.

One final quip about Ukip—"They used to call them clowns. Now they want to join the circus"—and Ed was done. Not bad.

When the PM rose to speak, the question that first presented itself was whether he was talking about the same country. This government has cut the deficit, cut business tax, frozen council tax and got crime down by 10 per cent. There are 1.2m more in work in the private sector now than when the present government came to office, and we are properly regulating the banks... The PM dropped in some gags also, but they were not as good as Miliband's.

And then it was back to the economy. As the PM talked, Ed Balls did something odd with his arm. He held it out in front of his chest, like a sideways-on Roman salute. He kept doing it. The PM then delivered one of his better lines. The Miliband Radio 4 skewering took place on the World at One programme. "Well," said the PM, "the world was at one in agreeing that he made a complete mess of his borrowing policy."

The PM then moved on to pension reform at which from the back of the press gallery there struck up the sound of loud, rasping snoring. "Backing aspiration means sorting out our immigration system," said the PM. On the back benches it appeared that a Conservative MP has also dozed off, head hanging to one side, as if shot. David Blunkett (Lab, Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough) suggested that the remedy for Britain's immigration problems was an ID card scheme. The PM waved the suggestion aside, saying that he intended to end this country's "something for nothing culture." The leaders speeches ended and the house began rapidly to empty.

If a solution exists to the country's economic and social problems, it was not heard at the Commons yesterday.