Is there a change in the air? Some Labour MPs, who have been very supportive since July, are showing signs of becoming more independent. They might be realizing that the Starmer Government is not as honest as they thought.
Liz Kendall, the Pensions Secretary, made an announcement that the Waspi women (women born in the 1950s whose pension age was raised from 60) would not receive compensation for a mistake made by the Civil Service.
Between 2005 and 2007, officials failed to send sufficient written warning that pension rules were changing.
Now the parliamentary ombudsman has written a withering report. The dread term ‘maladministration’ was used.
Ms. Kendall faced strong criticism from various politicians, including Labour’s Brian Leishman who took a particularly harsh stance. Mr. Leishman (representing Alloa & Grangemouth) hesitated for a moment, like a diver getting ready to jump off a high diving board, and then he expressed his disapproval.
‘Appalled’ by Ms Kendall’s decision, he had campaigned alongside Waspi women who would now regard this Government’s decision as ‘an incredible let-down’. They did not need ‘hollow statements’. This drew cheers from his colleagues. Burly Gareth Snell (Lab, Stoke Central) squinted through his smudged spectacles and called Ms Kendall’s statement ‘a sad moment’.
Might there yet, he begged, be some hope for Waspi women? Ms Kendall, more than happy to pose alongside campaigners before the election, wrung her withers and said the £10billion needed for compensation was not ‘a fair or proportionate use of taxpayers’ money’.
She may well be right but she shouldn’t have made fake noises in Opposition, should she?
Liz Kendall, Pensions Secretary (pictured), announced that Waspi women (1950s-born women whose pension age increased from 60) would not be compensated for a Civil Service foul-up
Sir Keir Starmer poses with WASPI campaigners in 2022
WASPI campaigners outside parliament in October. Between 2005 and 2007, officials failed to send sufficient written warning to the women that pension rules were changing
She issued one of those formal apologies that have become fashionable since Tony Blair coughed one up for the Irish potato famine.
Warning letters should have been despatched earlier, she admitted. Gill German (Lab, Clwyd North), a stodgy stooge, claimed it was all the Tories’ fault. Sister German perhaps forgot who was in office in 2005.
Rebecca Long-Bailey (Ind, Salford) snapped that ‘an apology is not enough’. Alan Gemmell (Lab, Central Ayrshire) looked hot and bothered as he admitted Waspi women would be ‘very disappointed’.
Chris McDonald (Lab, Stockton North), echoing this, looked as if he might be about to be sick.
Even slow-to-anger Florence Eshalomi (Lab, Vauxhall & Camberwell Green) had a go. Peter Swallow (Lab, Bracknell) gulped and burbled about the ‘difficulty’ of the decision. Ms Kendall removed her Elton John spectacles and brushed hair off her forehead. She adopted one of those sad voices that Lefties use when they are speaking to old people and simpletons. She felt everyone’s pain. That demanded skill, I suppose.
As for disgruntled backbenchers, Eve’s apple has now been tasted. Everything will now tingle.
Will further naughtiness beckon? Some of the brighter ones, particularly those who calculate that their majorities are in peril, may examine an inept, absent Prime Minister and start gossiping about him.
Ms Kendall with WASPI campaigners before the election
The former Labour now independent MP for Salford Rebecca Long-Bailey (pictured) snapped that ‘an apology is not enough’.
With such a majority, patronage loses some of its power because there are not enough ministerial jobs to dangle as bribes. Over Christmas, when these Labour MPs hear what their constituents think about Sir Keir, they may find rebellion as moreish as mince pies.
And perhaps they will then turn on Ed Miliband, whose Net Zero fervour yesterday reached fresh peaks of oddity.
Mr Miliband, Energy Secretary, took departmental questions. When listening to Opposition MPs, he now adopts theatrical disbelief. He tssks, crosses his arms, chicken-lifts his elbows, crosses his eyes, blows air through his flared nostrils and rolls his gaze to the ceiling.
Under calm interrogation by his Tory opponent Claire Coutinho, Mr Miliband jeered, screwed up his face like a cheese twist, cackled ostentatiously and muttered to himself.
And then, when making his formal reply, he whacked the despatch box with his right palm, tilted his neck toward the chandeliers and opened his mouth as if offering his dentist a sideways view of a bothersome gumboil.
Any ambulance driver finding a member of the public like that on a park bench would administer a sedative and drive him to the nearest booby hatch.
