The reign of virtue has begun. MPs on both sides of the House were on their very best behaviour. They arrived early in order to get the seats they wanted, or any seats at all, for PMQs. Never can Northern Ireland Questions, which came on first, have been so well attended.
Hilary Benn, the new Northern Ireland Secretary, adopted the patrician, proconsular manner which comes so naturally to him. It will be difficult ever to accuse him of striking a low blow, and nobody today ventured to do so.
Already, Benn reported, the new Government’s policy of “working with the EU” has led to “a success over dental amalgam”.
Paul Holmes, on the Opposition front bench, caught the constructive tone and thanked the new Labour ministers “for the gracious phone call last week”.
The Gracious Phone Call will presumably become part of our Constitution, or perhaps already is.
Sir Keir Starmer arrived on the stroke of noon, greeted by a short but fervent cheer from his troops. The tyranny of virtue grew more insistent as he declared that this is a “Government of service”, “a serious Government”, but never just the Government, or His Majesty’s Government.
“Can I congratulate the Prime Minister on such a positive start to his premiership?” Kim Leadbeater (Lab, Spen Valley) asked.
It turned out that she could.
“I’m really pleased that Great British Energy will be owned by and for the British people,” Starmer said a few minutes later. Words can still be mistaken, at this early stage, for deeds. The realisation that Great British Energy is in the hands of the Great British Bureaucracy can wait.
Rishi Sunak was much too prudent to mock Starmer’s brave new world. Instead he mocked himself as he sent good wishes to Britain’s Olympic athletes, “although to be honest I’m probably not the first person they want to hear advice from on how to win”.
A ripple of appreciative laughter, after which Sunak sought to entrench the “cross-party consensus on important matters of foreign policy”, notably on support for Ukraine.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to say how united we are,” Starmer replied, suggesting by his tone that with him as Prime Minister, after the disgraceful 14 years of Tory crisis and mess, virtue will at last be rewarded.
Stephen Flynn, leader of the diminished band of Scots Nats, who have had to yield their front-bench seats below the gangway to the swollen contingent of Lib Dems, congratulated the Prime Minister on ending Tory rule.
“And yours,” a Tory shouted.
Laughter, but Flynn takes laughter at his expense well. He reminded Starmer that shortly before the general election, Gordon Brown urged people to vote Labour to end child poverty, but now the Government has decided to stick by the two-child benefit cap. “What changed?” he wondered.
Starmer does not like questions about his integrity. He asked Flynn why there are 30,000 more children in poverty in Scotland.
Adrian Ramsay (Green, Waveney Valley) had the temerity to ask Starmer how he will show leadership on the “existential issue” of nature depletion.
Here was a direct challenge to Starmer’s moral supremacy, and he slapped it down by retorting that Ramsay “talks about leadership” but is “opposing vital green energy infrastructure in his own constituency”.
You hypocrite, Ramsay! Only Starmer can be trusted to save the planet, which means pylons marching across the Waveney Valley.
Christine Jardine (Lib Dem, Edinburgh West) warned that according to the Labour council, state schools in Edinburgh do not have room to accommodate the extra pupils who may be driven out of independent schools by the imposition of VAT on school fees, and asked how the Prime Minister will ensure that VAT levied on Scottish school fees will be reinvested in Scottish education.
“I do obviously understand the aspiration that parents who work hard and save hard have for their children,” Starmer began, which sounded like support for independent education, “but every parent has that aspiration whatever school their children go to.”
A perfect use, here, of piety to baffle inquiry, with the Prime Minister stepping forward as the true egalitarian. For the time being, before Labour’s record in office can be assessed, his possession of the moral high ground makes him monarch of all he surveys.
