Maybe it’s the imminent cinema release of a new Superman film that’s caused a certain mood to develop in parliament.
Tory backbenchers have certainly been acting like they’ve stepped straight from the pages of a comic. Unfortunately for David Cameron, they’ve been behaving more like the Bash Street Kids than superheroes. And there were significantly more than 10 of them 114 backed an amendment to the Queen’s Speech expressing regret that there was no legislation within it for a referendum on the EU.
Among them were Jacob Rees-Mogg (know-all Cuthbert), Edward Leigh (Plug), Nadine Dorries (Toots), Philip Davies (Smiffy) and Alec Shelbrooke (Fatty).
Like “Teach” in the comic strip, Cameron came a cropper courtesy of the unruly mob’s mischief. He attempted to pacify them by publishing a draft bill that would legislate for an EU referendum, but he now faces a summer of Tory turmoil over the issue as that bill is taken up by backbencher James Wharton.
Another aspect of this strategy, in reality more of a panic than a tactic, is that backbench bills are debated on Fridays when MPs are used to being in their constituencies. The Tories say there will be a three-line whip on the issue, meaning all their members should be present to vote. Consequently, opposition members will be expected to show up too. Constituency surgeries that usually take place at the end of the week will have to be cancelled across the land.
Combined with the fact that Cameron skipped Prime Minister’s Questions last week only the second he was meant to face in three months means there’s a case that this man is some sort of threat to democracy. We need a hero to save us!
Enter Ed Miliband.
He began his superhero training by saving a woman who had fallen off her bike. Unfortunately this selfless act doesn’t even qualify him for the title SuperEd, let alone Superman. That title belongs to Energy Secretary Ed Davey, who once performed the altogether more impressive though in superhero terms unoriginal feat of saving a woman from the path of an oncoming train. The crashed cyclist said Ed was “suave”. After that comment, the doctors had a good look at her head as well as her broken arm.
Environment Secretary Owen Paterson had another description of Miliband this week, dubbing him a “wishy-washy wally”. With his O-Patz nickname and apparent crusades against harmless woodland creatures his department has been lobbied in recent weeks by people dressed as both badgers and bees, urging him to dump policies the campaigners claim are harmful to their countryside pest of choice he’d make an excellent comic book villain.
On the forces of good is another MP to have picked up a nickname consisting of her first initial and surname M-Hodge.
Margaret Hodge chairs the Public Accounts Committee and on Thursday she was battling with the forces of evil. An executive from internet search engine Google was quizzed by her committee for three hours on their tax affairs. That’s not excessive the internet giants have many questions to answer about why they pay so little tax in the UK while us ordinary folk struggle through the economic storm paying whatever the taxman demands. Apparently, while their UK sales team do a lot of the actions associated with selling, deals are all officially closed by their Dublin office meaning they pay lower Irish corporation tax rates.
Hodge decried their policies as “calculated” and “unethical”. The firm’s motto could have come straight out of a comic book it is the simple “do no evil”.
“I think you do evil,” thundered Hodge. The Google suit had met his match. To ordinary taxpayers she was Wonder Woman.
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