Of Kings and knaves

Parliament went into prorogation on Tuesday, but that didn't mean it wasn't a week packed full of uproar beginning on Monday with the visit of King Abdullah and concluding when the verdict of the de Menezes shooting came in on Thursday and the backlash against Ian Blair started in earnest.

David Cameron arranged his features into "tough" and starting talking likewise on immigration on Monday, to the excitement of his party and many in the media and the chagrin of immigration Minister. The situation was not improved when Peter Hain announced that his Department had miscalculated the number of immigrants in the UK to the tune of 300,000. Red faces all round!

At the same time as the Government were quietly u-turning on most of their policies, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia pitched up for his first official visit to Blighty in twenty years. His arrival was marred slightly by a weeny foot-in-mouth incident before he set off, a large number of outraged protesters waving copies of the Independent, and Miliband the Younger making his excuses because he was going on paternity leave.

Nevertheless, the banquet courtesy of Her Maj went off a storm later in the week and presumably the King and Prince Philip discovered they had many things in common.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives' plans to point out that Gordon Brown is, like, Scottish and therefore one of those dirty forruners continued apace with Sir Malcolm Rifkind's idea to introduce an White English Chaps From The Counties Only Committee to give more adequate representation to the Tory Party. Cunning and subtle.

On Tuesday the House went into prorogation. Unfortunately everybody missed it because there was a power-cut in the Commons and by the time the lights went back on, it was all over. Luckily, it didn't affect the speech of Michael Gove which was hailed as the best thing since Disraeli was on his feet by the Conservatives and a resounding snort of "pretentious bullshit" from the comrades.

LibDem leadership contest: nominations closed on Wednesday and Nicky Clegg and Chris Huhne are the only contenders. The bitchslapping commenced almost immediately.

Having apologised to Lithuanian dance troupes and thrown his toys out of the pram over the party funding talks, Davy recovered slightly to enjoy the day of the Election-That-Wasn't on Thursday, and inadvertently announced a raft of commitments including a retrospective referendum on the EU Treaty in the process.

Later that day came the news that the Metropolitan Police had been found guilty in the Jean Charles de Menezes case but that Sir Ian Blair was to stay in his position with the full backing of the Gord and Jacqui Smith. The Tories have called for his resignation and public feeling is running high. Will he survive? Tune in later to find out...

The week ended with Home Office Minister Liam Byrne appearing before the beak and getting fined for using a mobile phone whilst driving. Smooth one, Liam.

Written by Lloyd Shepherd on 3 Nov 2007 12:25 PM. Permalink