Some of us, from time to time, have been known to observe that Chancellor Philip Hammond is no sunbeam. Mr Hammond himself will admit that he can come across somewhat desiccated.
My duty today is to report that he has a rival in the glum stakes. His Labour shadow, John McDonnell, yesterday gave a pre-Budget speech so downbeat, so funereally morbid, that by comparison Mr Hammond would have looked like Jimmy Tarbuck.
Our venue was the Harvey Goodwin Suite at Church House. The Harvey Goodwin Suite: you might imagine a light jazz band in the corner, cabaret tables, waitresses serving gin fizzes. By the time Mr McDonnell was done with us, we could certainly have used strong drink.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell presented his pre-Budget speech at Church House, Westminster. He used his 30 minutes to say that the Budget should outline plans to ‘save our public services’
An audience of 50 unsuspecting souls had gathered.
They were less oatmealy and CND-badged than one finds at Jeremy Corbyn events. The nose-ringed north London vegan brigade had perhaps not been notified of Brother McDonnell’s important contribution to the nation’s economic debate. Or perhaps bitter experience has taught them to avoid his orations.
The assembled onlookers were suited, male, a couple of them young with hair gel, the others with the air of professional economists or businessmen hedging their bets by cosying up to a possible future Chancellor.
Before the main entertainment we had to endure a cameo by Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, the pride of Eccles. Sister Long-Bailey, about whom there may be a touch of the shoe-shop manageress, starts many of her sentences with a conversational ‘now’.
‘Now this is an opportunity…’ she said. ‘Now that’s why the Budget…’ And my favourite: ‘Now any day now…’
By the time she handed over to ‘the next Chancellor of the Exchequer’ (she meant Mr McDonnell), we were certainly ready for him. Go on, John. Whack it to us. We know you want to clobber us with taxes and run up vast debts, but anything will be preferable to Long-Bailey’s simpering. We can take it!
Mr McDonnell waited until some sparse applause had abated. He glared at us. Then he was off.
The Tories, he said, were regarding next week’s Budget merely as a chance to save their jobs. But what was required was an emergency Budget ‘to save our public services’.
Chancellor Philip Hammond will present his Budget next Wednesday, the penultimate Budget before Brexit
This was said, as was his entire half-hour speech, in a tight-mouthed monotone. He did not gesticulate. He did not use his eyes to communicate determination or ire or (fat chance!) amusement. He just read his text in a level, grim voice.
‘People are angry… queueing for hours at A&E… schools laying off teaching assistants… police cuts… tax avoidance by the super-rich… nurses leaving the profession.’
The Litany has fallen out of fashion in Anglican worship but it had found its secular counterpart in this Capt Woebegone. ‘Councils are being starved of funds… breaking point… cuts to parenting classes… catastrophe… poverty… emergency food supply… we can’t go on like this.’
We may indeed not be able to go on like this, but Mr McDonnell could. The flesh on his face barely moved as his jaw ground out its prophecy of gloom. ‘Rising anger… George Osborne… the whole economy is becoming worse and worse… stubbornly low productivity… it’s his fault… a grim picture… worse conditions for worse pay… no generation in living memory has experienced such a decline in living standards… weak growth… the great lie…’
Well, you gather his thrust. He was unhappy. Long before he finished, so were we.
Eventually he stopped, his final prediction being that Mr Hammond would leave ‘not with a bang but with a whimper’. This was itself said in little more than a downcast whisper.
Contributions from the floor followed. One chap who had pre-submitted a question had, oh no, drifted into a world of his own.
‘He’s fallen asleep,’ observed Mr McDonnell with Eeyore-ish fatalism.
It simply fell to Ms Long-Bailey to wish us the chirrupy exhortation. ‘Safe onward journey!’
Beachy Head, please, driver.