Popular culture for doomed Tory hereditaries in the House of Lords means grouse shooting and snifters in White’s – so recently ermined Kevan Jones wryly likening them to losing contestants on Bullseye will fly straight over entitled heads. Baron Beamish, as the miner’s son and former Labour plebeian is now addressed, recalled how the darts-themed game show’s presenter, Jim Bowen, would say, “Let’s have a look at what you could have won!” when players lost.
So Tory crustie Thomas Galloway Dunlop du Roy de Blicquy Galbraith, second Baron Strathclyde, pleading for privileged chaps such as himself to be converted into life peers comes too late, observed Jones, after they voted down earlier moves by Labour’s Baron Bruce Grocott effectively to do that by ending bizarre aristo by-elections. Bully for the gentry left contemplating what they could’ve won.
Ex-golf pro Brian Leishman is one of parliament’s more intriguing fresh-meat newbies – a socialist thorn in Keir Starmer’s side who earned a handy living from a club-and-ball sport disfigured by 19th-hole right-whingers. Labour MP and former miner Ian Lavery teased the Alloa and Grangemouth leftie by imitating a golf swing and requesting advice on his imaginary grip. Leishman’s cry of what sounded like “Fore!” signalled that he’s focusing on politics.
Who is the Labour minister around Starmer’s No 10 table most admired by the ousted Tory cabinet? Wes Streeting? No, Yvette Cooper. One of the Conservatives harbouring ambitions to succeed flailing, failing Kemi Badenoch whispered he’d never say it in public but the Home Secretary is doing a good job. Watch for the Downing Street knives coming out to cut down a tall poppy.
Lindsay Hoyle popped in for a rare wee dram of the Speaker’s 12-year-old malt, but the reopening of a Strangers’ Bar, shut for weeks over a spiking allegation, was a damp squib, with doorkeepers counting tipplers in and out and a uniformed security guard patrolling the floor. The watering hole beloved of MPs, peers and lobby hacks is to have a max-50 capacity, to keep the atmosphere more Sunday school than speakeasy.
What the new Strangers’ does have in common with the old is no dress code. Blast from the past Alex Chalk, a former justice minister who lost his Cheltenham seat in the Tory election massacre, sauntered in wearing a bright yellow cycling jacket. Must have fallen on hard times, mused a drinker, if he’s working for Deliveroo.
Let’s raise a glass of fizzy water to the ironic self-awareness of Bermondsey bruiser Neil Coyle. To mark three years off the booze he’s invited friends and comrades to an event. In a bar.
[See also: Starmer’s defence spending increase could define his premiership]
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This article appears in the 26 Feb 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Britain in Trump’s World