Onwards and sideways. Abandon hope all ye who enter here. To get the full surround sound effect of Project Miserable you only have to observe Treasury departmental questions. A place from which few come out alive. Presided over by the Ministering Angel of Death (AKA Rachel Reeves). Dressed all in black like some latter day Morticia Addams.
You get the feeling that Reeves has been waiting all her life for this moment. Not just to be chancellor. But to be the Prophetess of Doom. The Slayer of Pleasure. Much of the time she can appear robotic at the dispatch box. Reciting her lines metronomically into the middle distance. Making eye contact with no one. A woman totally at home with saying no.
But mention the £22bn hole in the public finances and her eyes light up. Her voice becomes animated. This is her time. Her chance to shine. Think of her disappointment if, when she assumed office, she had found that the books were perfectly balanced. That every penny was properly accounted for. That the Conservatives had surprised everyone by being fit for office after all.
The Ministering Angel of Death would have been distraught. Devastated. At a total loss. Where is the fun in being fiscally responsible if you can’t go around cutting public spending and raising taxes? So Reeves never misses an opportunity to bring everyone back down to earth. There is no money, she grins. Things are terrible. Worse than even she had dared imagined. For imagined, read hoped. This is her best life. I guess, you take your fun where you find it.
Half an hour into the hour-long session and already everyone had lost count of the number of times Reeves and her departmental team had mentioned the £22bn. The answer to almost every question was prefaced with “Well, you trashed the economy. Black hole. Sorry, not sorry. Talk to the hand.” And there’s nothing anyone can say about this, because it all happens to be true.
The Tories were beaten into submission early on. Most had their heads in their hands, too terrified to say anything. Knowing that even asking something vaguely sensible would open them up all manner of hell. Like, if you really cared why didn’t you do something about it in the last 14 years when you had the chance?
Julian Lewis took the unusual position of wondering whether the Tories should be congratulated for not leaving an even bigger hole. What’s £22bn between friends? The Prophetess of Doom sighed. If only. Laura Trott – never the sharpest member of any team in which she happens to find herself – crashed and burned. She mumbled something about pensions. To which Reeves demanded an immediate apology. For everything. For the last 14 years.
For most of the session, Jeremy Hunt tried to pretend he was invisible. Who can blame him? He’s not going to be shadow chancellor after the Tory leadership election campaign is over and there’s nothing to be gained by copping unnecessary flak. Apart from anything else, he’s far too leftwing for most of the current crop of Tory headbangers. He knows his tax cuts were unaffordable.
But Jezza was obliged to say something, so he kept it short. What about the cronyism with some of the Treasury appointments? Rachel yawned. What about them? Give her a break. After all the corruption in government over the past five years the least she should be allowed to do was give one of her mates a job. Jezza didn’t argue the toss. She had a point. And right now he doesn’t really care that much about anything. He’d only been going through the motions.
Not that the Ministering Angel got things entirely her own way. She will have noted a sizeable amount of disquiet on her own benches at her cuts to the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. The rebellion is still at the polite stage, but it’s there nonetheless. Bigger than the government would have wanted. Cracks are emerging already. The honeymoon period is over. So soon.
Reeves did her best to downplay the row. The pension was £900 more than it had been last year. She was going to personally insulate old housing. She was encouraging more people to apply for pension credit. But this wasn’t as reassuring as she hoped. Anyone on more than £13,000 was going to suffer. Old people were going to be cold. We haven’t heard the last of this.
Elsewhere in Westminster, the Tories were continuing their existential crisis. A recent survey has found that most people find the Tories a little bit weird. And you can see why. Having already made two speeches to launch his leadership campaign, Tom Tugendhat decided to go for broke by having a third. This time no expense was spared. Hiring a couple of rooms in the old Liberal club. Free merch for everyone. T-shirts. Sponge hands. Smarties with Tom’s face on. Or what would have been Tom’s face if he had a long, droopy moustache. A collector’s item.
What makes this even weirder is that Tugendhat is meant to be the sensible one. The candidate with appeal from outside the deranged Tory membership. The launch was hosted by identikit men in chinos. Former Sandhurst cadets turned estate agents. But even Tom’s gone to the dark side. Then again, it’s the deranged he needs to win over.
Someone who nobody recognised – not even herself – made a brief introduction. Then after a long wait – shades of Liz Truss being unable to open the door – Tugendhat appeared. “I want to be prime minister,” he said. Of course you do. But there’s a small matter of overturning a 172-seat Labour majority first.
For the most part, he did OK. His speech was better thought through than most. He promised to serve, lead and act. Though it might have been more helpful to the country if he had done this while the previous Tory government was fighting with itself and the country. But Tom had an explanation. He had been keeping the king’s secrets. And if he had told us what they were he would have to kill us. As I said, weird.
There was plenty of red meat to for the Tory faithful. Taxing private schools was the most vindictive policy a government had ever enacted. Anyone for Rwanda? He would consider leaving the EHCR to be more like Germany. Except Germany hasn’t left the EHCR. Details. But in a weird way it was all coherent. It’s just not clear if anyone was watching. Or cared. Right now the Tories exist on life support within their own bubble.
So spare a thought for Mel Stride. The one leadership contender yet to have a launch event. His is scheduled for after the first round of voting on Wednesday. By which time he may well be already out of the race. Only the Tories could come up with something that surreal. Weird.