A zombie parliament is gonna zombie. All across Westminster, almost nothing stirs. MPs sleep in their offices to escape the midday sun. Ministers collapse with exhaustion after being asked to recite Rishi Sunak’s five priorities. Far too knackered to even dream of doing anything about them. Not that anyone would notice. Even the rats can barely move from their hiding places. Matt Hancock is idly making TikTok videos of his favourite drinks. He has to do something, I suppose. He is now a life coach in futility. Otherwise the only sound is of Nadine Dorries. An endless wailing lament for the peerage that never was. A tragedy on an epic scale. One worthy of at least 10 days national mourning. Make that 11. This is far bigger than the death of the queen. Alas poor Nadine. If only she could remember how she had slagged off the House of Lords as a complete waste of space, packed full of cronies, just five years ago. But now her life is one of unfulfilled torment. Just another mediocre former cabinet minister who didn’t quite make the grade. Not least because it had never occurred to her that it might be an idea to resign as an MP first. Nor that it might have been Boris Johnson who had failed to tell her the truth about the progress of her ennoblement. So sweet. She still needs to believe she is the only woman to whom Johnson has never lied.
This is the Dead City. A state within a state, where no one dares move even if they wanted to. Sunak is almost paralysed. Unsure of his next move and terrified of doing something that makes the situation even worse. It can’t last – he knows that – but he keeps waiting for a sign that never comes. A sign that everything’s going to be OK. But all he hears are the murmurs – sometimes howls – of discontent that come from his own party. The Tories also sense they are on borrowed time. Some have already checked out. From time to time, the opposition feels the need to make something happen. Just to prove that they – at least – are still alive. Even if no one on the government benches is. Almost as if they’re worried that the flatlining may be contagious. So, more as an exercise in democracy and to fill in time rather than in the expectation of any answers, Labour’s Pat McFadden tabled an urgent question on the rising cost of mortgages. “Er, hello,” said the shadow Treasury minister diffidently. He was very sorry to interrupt the government’s lunchtime siesta – though almost any time is now siesta time – but he just wanted to check in and make sure everything was OK. Um, did the minister know that interest rates had gone up a lot and, as homeowners now regularly borrowed larger sums of money than before, the average increase in mortgage payments was £2,300 a year. Did he have any idea where people were going to find that sort of money, given the cost of living crisis? Andrew Griffith, the Treasury minister who had been woken up to represent the government, made a half-decent fist of trying to show he had synaptic connection. Principally by doing his best to remember which constituency each MP represented. “Don’t tell me. It’s on the tip of my tongue.” When it came to actually answering questions he wasn’t so convincing. Mainly because he is so rich, he finds it hard to identify with other mortals. He merely wonders why everyone hadn’t bought their houses with their own cash rather than borrowing from the bank. But yes. Griffith wanted everyone to know he was up to speed. It was like this. While he couldn’t explain why the cost of government borrowing was more expensive in the UK than elsewhere, he had it on good authority that interest rates going up were a global phenomenon. Just one of those things. Not really his problem. Caveat emptor. But if interest rates did start going down again then he wanted it on record that it would all be down to the prudence of the government. At this point, the robotically smiling Griffith remembered that he had broken the first cardinal rule of government. He had forgotten to squeeze in Rish!’s five priorities in his opening remarks. An oversight he swiftly put right. Inflation would be halved and when it did people would be grateful that prices had fallen. Aaagh. We’re screwed. A Treasury minister who doesn’t understand the difference between inflation and prices. All that will happen is that everyone will notice prices rising just a tad slower. They will continue to be broke either way. Ah well. You can’t have everything. Especially not from a minister who happened to serve in the Treasury in Liz Truss’s government. A sure sign of a financial idiot. Though understandably he wasn’t about to admit that the Kamikwasi budget had made a bad situation worse. That’s strictly off limits for everyone. We are in a new year zero where the present government cannot admit the faults of the last. However, Griffith did seem to agree with Simon Clarke – Sir Simon as he is as of last Friday: proof that even the stupidest people can get an honour, hope for us all – that high interest rates weren’t the worst news. There were always hostels for the homeless and look on the bright side. Rates for savers were also going up. Kerching! The session petered out inconsequentially. There again, it had only ever been a piece of performative politics. Just to prove someone was doing something. Or at least talking about doing something. Meanwhile over in west London, the first day of the Covid inquiry was getting under way. It’s scheduled to run for a great deal longer than the pandemic itself. Heather Hallett got things under way with a brief outline of what she hoped to achieve over the next five years or so. Staying awake being one of them. The room is airless and the voices of so many male KCs intensely soporific. Still, as the opening statements on the lack of preparation due to Brexit and the emergency services stretched to breaking point by austerity took shape, it soon became abundantly clear why the UK response had been so poor. A slide, showing the chain of command for emergency preparedness, was totally unintelligible. Coloured arrows pointing in every direction. No wonder no one had a clue what was going on at the start of the pandemic.