𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The funniest moment in the State Opening of Parliament this week came when Black Rod performed the venerable ritual of banging three times on the locked doors of the Commons to summon MPs to the House of Lords for the King’s speech. As the thuds of his rod echoed through the Palace of Westminster, a Labour backbencher shouted, “Not now Andy”, mocking the increasingly desperate efforts by the Greater Manchester Mayor to find a Parliamentary seat so he can be a candidate in the leadership contest. If Burnham succeeds in his quest, he will be the favourite. Already he enjoys the highest approval ratings of any politician in his party, while in his native north-west he is known as “King of the North”.

Yet the cult of Burnham is hard to follow, given his limited record of achievement. For all the favourable PR he generates there is a worrying softness about him, an anxiety to please, a willingness to bend with the prevailing wind. One former minister who served with him in the Cabinet said sarcastically: “What does Andy believe in today?”

He flopped badly in his previous two bids for the leadership, in 2010 and 2015, when he was comprehensively out-manoeuvred by the wily Chancellor George Osborne over welfare reform. His tactical weakness opened the way for Jeremy Corbyn to present himself as the principled defender of socialism and the benefits system. It is not an episode that inspires confidence in his toughness for the top job.

The Tory election results were generally poor, with 563 seats lost. Yet the leadership of Kemi Badenoch has faced little internal pressure, partly because her public performances have improved so dramatically. This week she was again in commanding form in the Commons as she tore into Starmer with a mix of humour and invective.

This followed a powerful address she gave at the recent London rally against antisemitism. If Starmer falls, she will deserve a large amount of credit, for it was her forensic questioning about Sir Keir’s appointment of Peter Mandelson as his US Ambassador that started the Prime Minister on the slide towards the exit.

I know what I think…

Sir Gary Oldman was acclaimed for his portrayal of the seedy, embittered but astute intelligence officer Jackson Lamb in the hit TV series Slow Horses. Now Oldman is winning rave reviews for his performance at the Royal Court Theatre in the role of another unkempt. semi-tragic character, that of the elderly protagonist in the play Krapp’s Last Tape by the Irish writer Samuel Beckett.

Intriguingly, the title – which was spelt Crapp in the first drafts – may have been inspired by Beckett’s love of cricket. The only man in history to have played first-class cricket and won the Nobel Prize for literature, Beckett first used the name Krapp on a character in an obscure play written in late forties, the very moment that the Gloucestershire batsman Jack Crapp was picked for the England Test side. Could these events be connected? As a dishevelled old Irish cricket fan, that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.

Trying to boost his leadership credentials, Wes Streeting boasted of slashing bureaucracy by his abolition of the huge quango NHS England. But last week it was revealed that, in the year since its demise was announced, NHS England has actually advertised more than 1,200 jobs and its monthly wage bill has gone up by £3million. As usual with Labour, rhetoric is not matched by reality.

The best possible ambassador

The Princess of Wales was greeted by ecstatic, cheering crowds on her visit this week to Reggio Emilia in Italy. It was her first official foreign trip since her treatment for cancer and she retains the box office appeal of Hollywood superstars. In these troubled times, she is the best possible ambassador for Britain and advert for the monarchy.

Progress

In 40 years from May 1976, Britain had six Prime Ministers. If Starmer goes soon, we will have had seven in the last decade. It’s called progress.