Eager to assert her tough-guy credentials, new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood welcomed counterparts from the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance.
Standing outside the Honourable Artillery Company in London, Ms Mahmood eagerly shook hands with Donald Trump‘s gun-toting homeland security minister, a dog killer.
Kristi Noem is a former governor of South Dakota who shot dead the family pet, a pooch named Cricket, after it tried to nip her.
Given Sister Noem’s propensity for putting a bullet between the ears of sad-eyed mutts, it was perhaps just as well that Yvette Cooper was no longer chairing the event. Yvette could get a little bitey sometimes. We might have had a diplomatic incident – if not an awkward homicide – on our hands.
The Five Eyes alliance allows us to share security secrets with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US. David Cameron used to observe that the organisation should more accurately be called ‘Ten Eyes’, given that most participants have two eyeballs. Mind you, I once edited a diary column on which we had five reporters but only eight working headlights, two of our chaps being down to one jelly each. Story for another day, perhaps.
Back to politics. Vertically challenged Ms Mahmood, who came up roughly to Ms Noem’s gun belt, greeted the dog murderer in bright sunshine. Ms Mahmood gushed words of greeting (these did not, one assumes, include ‘woof-woof’).
The police sniffer dogs that are normally evident at such tightly guarded events were nowhere to be seen. They seemed to have scarpered. And who could blame them?
Maria Eagle attends defence questions yesterday despite being sacked as a minister
Ms Mahmood used the summit to claim that she and her colleagues were looking at putting visa pressure on Third World countries to take back illegal migrants.
This was something a former Conservative Home Secretary, Priti Patel, legislated for, to great yowls from Labour. Now Ms Mahmood, pointy chin gleaming, was presenting it as a sign of her own rigour. Given how keen she is on castration, migrants might accept repatriation as a softer option.
Westminster was still recovering from last Friday’s ministerial slaughter. Angela Rayner was nowhere to be seen. Where Lucy Powell used to sit there was just emptiness. No change there, then.
But Maria Eagle had turned up to defence questions. Good for her. Ms Eagle was axed as defence procurement minister last week, her duties passing instead to clean-behind-the-ears Luke Pollard. He pronounces ‘missiles’ as ‘missals’. Not quite the same thing, dear.
Miss Eagle is the twin of Angela Eagle, who is also a Labour MP and had a similarly rotten day on Friday when she was demoted from the Home Office to Environment. One assumes her responsibilities there will include keeping an eye on field mice, voles and similar tasty morsels.
Maria is the less frightening – dare one say, the more soignee? – of the Eagle gals. It is not impossible that Sir Keir Starmer was terrified of giving Angela the boot and picked instead on poor Maria, who had done nothing particularly wicked at Defence.
There she sat on the backbenches, looking even more glum than usual. A Conservative, Sir Julian Smith, ambled over to pat her on the shoulder and whisper some kindly words. Miss Eagle looked rather pop-eyed. Almost tearful. It can be a beastly game, politics.
Winners looked ecstatic. Mike Tapp, a new Home Office minister, was beaming as he took his front bench seat. He had donned a pair of red socks for the occasion. A senior colleague asked for a glass of water and Mr Tapp dropped the beaker. A leaky Tapp. But smooth. Not a line on his forehead. Kim Kardashian has more wrinkles.
Also v. pleased with himself was Stephen Morgan, who has escaped the clutches of Scary Bridget Phillipson at Education and been made a Whip. And the new border security minister, Alex Norris, stood behind the Speaker’s Chair. He was previously one of Angela Rayner’s underlings at Local Government. He appeared to have cast aside his grief at her downfall. Couldn’t stop laughing.
