Fifteen boring machines! More than Labour's front bench
When Mr Alexander first arrived in government he was endearingly hopeless. Yesterday he was endearingly rather good
Ladies and gents, we have a new star: Daniel Grian Alexander, Rt Hon Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. Aren’t they all brands of mineral water?
Wee Danny, as this 6ft 3-ish dollop of docility is seldom called, is Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
Yesterday he was given the task of announcing lots of public spending.
Confused? On Wednesday, George Osborne came to the Commons to tighten the economic belt.
Yesterday, Mr Alexander went on a £100billion splurge.
How come? Well, the spending included projects which will not be built for years, and they are mainly ‘infrastructure’ – i.e. transport, energy, housing.
For our political elite, the word ‘infrastructure’ carries a halo. It is almost as if spending on infrastructure is not real money.
Anyway, there swayed Mr Alexander at the despatch box. He does not often get to do long statements. Observers half-shielded their eyes in case it all went horribly wrong.
This is the man they call ‘Beaker’ (as in The Muppets), the man Harriet Harman – rotten beast! – called ‘the ginger rodent’.
When Mr Alexander first arrived in government he was endearingly hopeless. Yesterday he was endearingly rather good.
He found a genial tone and easily defused the awful yaa-booing from Ed Balls (who yesterday slouched with his left arm round the shoulder of his Muttley, Chris Leslie). During a passage about new spending on gas fracking, Mr Alexander turned to Mr Balls and said: ‘If they stopped fracking about they might learn something.’ Hon Members on all sides: ‘Hear hear!’
Labour MPs had to look furious. Mr Balls and his wrecking crew of thuggish trusties demanded it
The new gas exploration would involve ‘15 boring machines – even more than are on the Labour front bench’, said Mr Alexander. More cheers. He told us something about his childhood on the island of Colonsay (lovely place). And was there not something Hebridean about his air of self-awareness and calm?
The Government was taking the economy ‘from rescue to recovery’. Hon Members: ‘Groan.’ Mr Alexander gave a chuckle. Later we heard that the economy was going ‘from repair to renewal’.
From ruination to remorse, more like it.
Labour MPs had to look furious. Mr Balls and his wrecking crew of thuggish trusties demanded it.
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But Mr Alexander was announcing money for all sorts of areas: Merseyside, Manchester, Bedford, Oxford, Newcastle upon Tyne, Westmorland, Gospel Oak, Hull.
A bypass for Tory Chichester and a better A63 for Labour Hull. He promised to ‘look at the A2 corridor’ (you look down a corridor, surely) and ‘connectivity to Leeds Airport’. Good old ‘connectivity’ is another word used only by political wonks. Boo, hiss, went Labour MPs. They laughed. Jeered. They hated the fact that someone else was spending public money. To them, economics is not a matter of national prosperity. It is a lever for electoral domination and here was a Lib Dem yanking on that lever.
Mr Alexander promised to fill 19million potholes in one year. He boasted about ‘strengthening our communities’. Strengthening the Lib Dem vote might have been more accurate. Danny Alexander for Lib Dem leader? Odder things have happened.
Earlier there was another atrocity from Speaker Bercow and his axe-murderer temper. A transport minister, Simon Burns, muttered, very softly, some disagreement with a Labour MP who was talking. Bercow went bananas, yelling at Mr Burns: ‘Be quiet, man!’
Mr Burns, who has never disguised his loathing for Bercow, replied: ‘Stupid little man!’
A few minutes later a Labour frontbencher called Docherty ladled compliments over Speaker Bercow for his response to the latest lobbying scandal. So it was interesting to note that when Mr Alexander was making his statement, the Labour frontbencher who heckled him the most noisily was this same Docherty. For ages, Mr Bercow said nothing.
Eventually he beseeched Mr Docherty to pipe down a little. ‘It would be greatly to the benefit of the House if your jollification could be slightly restrained,’ said the Speaker. Compare that with his treatment of Mr Burns. And you still think this Speaker is not biased?
