Some insititutions never leave their school days far behind. Westminster and the House of Commons are amongst those as any viewer of the weekly Wednesday Prime Minister's Questions can testify. Here schoolroom behaviour is a regular feature. It is also dotted through any other major debate to which more than a handful of MPs turn up. At these the attendees are usually cosmetically clustered for TV purposes around whoever is speaking lest the viewers start questioning actual attendance records. In the case of some ,including the glowering member for Kirkaldy and Cowdenbeath ,who did manage to find his way into the House and to speak today, these are particularly unimpressive. Truancy is as big a problem in the Commons as it is in the worst of schools.
In the Commons and elsewhere there is now a lot of point scoring ("I said it first, ", "No, I did") but all three parties are briefly in a weird sort of harmony cobbled together under fire in bellowing that News Corp, who have now have for the time being at least withdrawn from the BSkyB bid, should not be allowed to totally take over the company. All three, who until very recently were ostensibly friends of the now vilified organisation , attending its parties and accepting its invitations scarcely daring to be absent. Over the last few days there has been much jostling in the corridors of power and powerlessness, originally not to be the first in the queue in slag off Mr Murdoch's organisation ( "You say it then", "No you,-you thought of it") for fear that if Mr Murdoch then won out there would be all manner of unwanted consequences for he or she who cast the first stone come the runup to the next General Election . It was eventually Ed Milliband, who is at his best in moral indignation mode (The Tories try it but it just doesn't feel so real somehow) who stepped forward to much public acclaim ("His best week yet") thereby elbowing his way past Dave. Nobody heard or cared much where Nick & Co stood as they are probably out of it in 2015. Dave sounded like a man outmanoeuvred. He had allowed the moral high ground and front line huffing and puffing rights and "it was our motion" claims to go to Ed. Dave can live with that though, not just because the last ten days will have been largely forgotten when Parliament returns in the autumn from its summer hols but because today's quarry will know full well that the Conservatives ultimately have had no option but to join in the "They shall not pass" protestations once Labour, very much in line with baying public opinion , had broken cover and forced a debate for this afternoon. Although Labour have done well and appeared substantially ahead of the Tories in the vitriol and moral rectitude stakes over the last ten days ,the outcome for them at a future crucial time could be yet be a comeuppance rather than a victory. Dave should not be too pleased with himself though as he could also get an unexpected and inconvenient swipe for anatomical shrivelling in the face of fire.
One group who will feel pleased at having been able officially to be at one with Labour today,- their imagined real best friends,- on a Labour motion will be those Lib Dems (most?) who have been longing to be just that ever since the coalition with the party they most didn't like came into being in May 2010. Since that day they have only grudgingly supported those of their leaders who understood and understand that the alliance with the Tories was the only game in town and that the party has in the past thirteen months exercised more influence on policy and got more of its own agenda through than at any time in the past sixty years . These folk will end this term with a warm, sticky glow that they voted with Ed after all,-and maybe he even smiled at them. By this naive bit of self congratulation they confirm that they are still in the first form of this rough and tumble school. Political maturity is still a long way off. They will escape retribution in these heady days just before breaking up for the hols, but if they carry it on into following school/Westminster year(s) they are heading for a caning. They will get their just deserts and it will be no use blaming anyone in the media or anywhere else. They will have earned it themselves.
