JC told Lammy he was surprised that the DPM had not apologised to the victim’s family for the accidental release from prison of the Ethiopian sex offender. Lammy replied that he had then and repeated it now. Cartlidge continued obliviously with “I do think the Deputy Prime Minister owes it to the family to offer an apology here on the Floor of the House” and when the reaction made his error clear he had to cover with “he should have done it at the start of his remarks.”
JC said these were “very serious matters” that required him to ask a “further, very important question”:
“Can he reassure the House that since Kebatu was released, no other asylum-seeking offender has been accidentally let out of prison?”Everybody (including Lammy, as he later admitted) knew the answer to that already. It was in the morning edition of the the Daily Telegraph: there had indeed been another inadvertent release of a foreign jailbird, an Algerian this time.
The DPM dodged the query and counterattacked - this is exactly what Starmer has often done with Mrs Badenoch telling him and us that she has noticed. Lammy said JC had been Justice Minister himself while prisons were rotting; early releases began under the Tories in 2021; Labour was now busy fixing the mess; Dame Lynne Owens was continuing her investigation. All fair points.
We could have moved on, but no, JC was channelling his Paxman. He continued to over-emphasize, saying these were “extremely serious crimes” and therefore felt he had to repeat the “very specific” question. By George, he was going to nail the DPM!
Lammy replied with what he had done and was going to do to sort the problem. His tactical error lay in not admitting blandly that there had been another inadvertent release and then making all his valid points, spinning it as a legacy Conservative failure. But it may not have been his error: doesn’t the Cabinet Office script everything?
On JC’s side, what did he hope to achieve with his repetitions? We all knew the news and the Tories could expect no response but reminders of their own incompetence.
Cartlidge’s persistence was getting annoying and when he lectured Lammy on his duties as Justice Secretary the DPM exploded: “Get a grip, man! I know I am the Justice Secretary.” The bullyragging had provoked the powerfully-built man into bovine aggression, leaning over the Despatch Box, jabbing his finger and shouting. There is a reason why the centre aisle is thirteen feet wide.
Was that Cartlidge’s aim, to show that Lammy’s short fuse makes him an inappropriate candidate for the top job when Starmer quits? There is to date no indication that Lammy wants it; but if the choice is between him and the boggle-eyed eco-zealot who is destroying our industrial economy, then hooray for Britain’s first black PM! At least he is sane.
JC started again, “The purpose of government is to take -” responsibility, we assume, but his pomposity was interrupted by noise from the benches.
In the end, Cartlidge never got to his killer punchline, for he had miscounted his allocation of questions and the Speaker guillotined him. JC was reduced to a post-session afterthought in the form of a Point Of Order, about whether Lammy had known of the Algerian incident. Hoyle wafted him away with “You have put it on the record.”
A further afterthought came into the media from some spinmeister who pointed out that Brahim Kaddour Cherif is not in fact an asylum-seeker but a visa overstayer.
The Leader of the Opposition’s position is in no immediate danger.
Was this whole to-do about prisons, or about the relentless rubber-boat invasion? If the latter, a better case might have been the man who came back here a month after being thrown out of the country - perhaps collecting frequent-floater points?
Meanwhile our frequent-flyer PM was in Brazil for the COP30 international climate conference, together with Prince William, Ed Miliband, the Mayor of London, the metro-mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin, and a host of British assistants and advisers.
Eight miles of Amazonian rainforest had been bulldozed to create a four-lane highway to Belém for 50,000 aviation-borne global eco-champions. Absentees from this fossil fuel-burning beano included major polluters India, Russia, the US and China. Irony is not dead: blame it on Rio.
Back in Westminster, Lib Dem Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper spoke of threats posed by Russia, China and Elon Musk. Her supplementary was about taxing banks rather than “struggling families,” in response to which the DPM “gently” reminded her of her Party’s role in Coalition-era austerity.
The SNP’s Stephen Flynn tried to link BBC’s Scam Safe Week to the upcoming Budget and was treated to the usual lecture on the SNP’s failures. Lammy later assured Scots that they were not a threat to national security but the SNP, with its opposition to the nuclear deterrent, was.
Other questions and comments included:
The multiple stabbing on a train in Huntingdon, and heroic civilian defenders there
The murder of mothers by their children
Crowdfunding for a young cancer patient
Seeking NHS drug approval for a rare mobility disorder
Prostate Cancer Research
The alleged failures of Reform in Kent
Contrasting the National Minimum Wage with the non-Parliamentary earnings of Reform leader Nigel Farage
The threatened closure of the Lindsey oil refinery
As Remembrance Sunday approached, commemorating the wartime military contribution of Jews and the West indies Regiment, and Indian troops for whom a marigold may also be worn
Funding for the London Metropolitan police
Housing for the Armed Forces
Leaseholder rights
Engaging young people in politics
The need to limit the burning of waste
Coordinating repair works to road rail and utilities
Access to NHS dentistry
Review of maternity and neonatal services
The hurricane damage in Jamaica, and the need to combat climate change… all so much more important than making teacher lose his temper!
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