Gosh it was hot in the Commons. Hotter, even, than my old mum’s front room, which is in turn hotter than an Addis Ababa greenhouse. Had the Chamber’s thermostat fallen into the hands of climate-change deniers? Had the clerk of works forgotten to reset the boiler after last week’s snow?
Dress code should have been sola topis and string vests or (in the case of newly svelte Sir Nicholas Soames) bikinis.
The doorkeepers, in tailcoats and thick waistcoats, were as pink as Vimto. Thangam Debbonaire (Lab, Bristol West) cooled her face by waving the sort of black lace fan favoured by senoras at the corrida. Boris Johnson, Foreign Secretary, kept blowing his cheeks. The heat was so bad, it brought on a piercing headache.
What stood out yesterday in the Commons, above the sweltering heat, was that Mrs may seemed to have done the impossible and united the Tories
Amid it all stood Theresa May in pale blue jacket, unusually confident and cool. She was telling MPs about her Brexit speech last Friday. When she made it at Mansion House it was heard in respectful silence. Here in the Commons it was subjected to Opposition mooings and rhubarbings and moans, when she said ‘we are leaving the single market’, of ‘why?’
The Commons can make anything sound bad. But what was striking about the Commons yesterday – apart from the heat haze rising like something in a Sam Shepard film – was the consensual mood on the Conservative benches. Mrs May seemed to have done the impossible and united the Tories.
The one exception? Anna Soubry (Con, Broxtowe). During a brief contribution by Brexiteer Peter Bone (Con, Wellingborough), I saw Miss Soubry make a jokey gesture to some of her friends on the Labour benches. She tapped her forehead, signalling that she thought Mr Bone was bonkers. His sin? To have crowed that ‘in 389 days’ time the UK will leave the dreadful European superstate’.
There was, however, no concerted grumbling at Mrs May from the Tory Remainers. Miss Soubry herself settled for a quibble about how much the Government is spending on Brexit preparations. Her fellow Europhile Bob Neill (Con, Bromley and Chislehurst) had a niche fret about the judiciary but praised Mrs May’s ‘pragmatic tone which fits the natural tenor of our party’ (Tory activists I know are actually a lot hotter for Brexit than that).
Shadow Commons leader Valerie Vaz heckled May as she sat on one side of Jeremy Corbyn
Remainerish George Freeman (Con, Mid Norfolk), whom I recently saw hanging round in Mayfair near Tony Blair’s offices, called Mrs May’s speech ‘typically businesslike’. Sarah Wollaston (Con, Totnes) merely raised a reasonable point about health experts still being able to work here if they were from the EU.
Kenneth Clarke (Con, Rushcliffe-sur-Mer) was absent. Dominic Grieve (Con, Beaconsfield), le Duc d’Autosatisfaction, graced us with his presence for a short while before gliding out, silent as a top-of-the-range Citroen.
There was less serenity on the Labour side. While Mrs May spoke, she was heckled by Emily Thornberry and Valerie Vaz, sitting either side of Jeremy Corbyn. Sandwiched by glamour!
Miss Thornberry, when she shouts, moves her jaw and lips like the late Les Dawson playing a gossipy char.
‘The Prime Minister has been held hostage by the extremes in the Cabinet,’ claimed Mr Corbyn. This would have had more purchase had it not been so demonstrably untrue. Both Europhile and Eurosceptic ultras were relaxed.
Mrs May was hailed as ‘clear and determined’ by Iain Duncan Smith (Con, Chingford and Woodford Green). With Brussels grumbling about British ‘cherry-picking’, IDS said ‘cherries exist to be picked’. No-nonsense Andrew Percy (Con, Brigg and Goole) was pleased that Mrs May was standing up for Northern English voters who had until now been ‘patronised and insulted as being too thick, too Northern or too racist’.
Ian Blackford, for the SNP, said his MPs would take the fight to the Government. He was rather torpedoed by the fact that there were only six of them there at the time. The best Opposition line came from the Lib Dem leader, Sir Vince Cable, who noted that Mrs May had finally ‘delivered a trade deal with her own Cabinet’. In other words, party unity.