Martyn Brown’s week in Westminster included see MPs dancing and a chat with Kemi Badenoch (Image: Daily Express)
When people ask me what I like best about my job, I often respond with a one-word answer – variety. Without wishing to sound like Forrest Gump, you just never know what you’re going to get.
This week was a case in point. My scruffy reporter’s notebook was filled with a veritable buffet of goodies from MPs ballroom dancing with the Strictly team to another Chinese spy scandal and the rumble of war in the Middle East. The sight of 40 MPs, led by Speaker Hoyle and Angela Rippon, taking part in a morning waltz in the Portcullis House atrium was definitely a new one for me. And the viral videos of our politicians enjoying themselves at work certainly triggered a wider public debate.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle and Angela Rippon dancing in Parliament (Image: PA)
Many were enraged, especially as MPs have just had a pay rise and that it happened as British military bases were on high alert, bombs were falling on Tehran and an Iranian warship was being sunk off Sri Lanka.
Others, on the other hand, believe it was all a bit of fun and everyone should just chill out a bit.
So, how should our parliamentarians respond to the Iran crisis?
A couple of hours later I was in the Commons as Kemi Badenoch was on barnstorming form again, tearing into Sir Keir Starmer over his dithering response to the conflict during a feisty Prime Minister’s Questions.
The Labour leader simply responded by patronising her for being unstatesmanlike.
Undeterred, she ripped into him and his backbenchers again, deriding them as “a sea of orcs and goons” and that they are “pathetic and weak”.
That evening, I had a very pleasant chat with Mrs Badenoch at a drinks reception.
She was very personable, warm and engaging. Quite the opposite of her pugnacious pugilism at the despatch box.
From badass to charming in the blink of an eye is an intoxicating quality to have.
But the Tory leader hasn’t won everyone over in her party.
While waiting to listen to a speech by Canadian Conservative Party leader – the fast-talking Pierre Poilievre – on Tuesday night, I got chatting to an ex-Tory MP, now a peer, I know.
He agreed that she is doing better than a year ago but cautioned against the “name-calling” over defectors, like Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman, to Reform UK.
Kemi Badenoch was on barnstorming form at PMQs (Image: House of Commons/AFP via Getty)
“It’s not what Conservatives are about, there’s no need for it,” he confided.
Speaking of Reform, Nigel Farage rubbed Sir Keir’s nose in it on Friday night as he wined and dined at Donald Trump‘s at Mar-a-Lago estate.
Labour’s Chagos Islands surrender was said to be on the menu as the wannabe PM lobbied the Trump administration in Florida.
Squeezed somewhere into the week’s chaos was Rachel Reeves who delivered a fairly non-descript economic Spring forecast which was totally out of date even before the Chancellor uttered a word due to the unfolding crisis in the Middle East.
Politics next week looks like it will be dominated by the Middle East conflict again.
Who knows, the Royal Navy’s HMS Dragon might even leave port by then.
Binoculars will also be trained on the Cheltenham Festival, where tens of thousands of racegoers, including a few politicos, will don their best Barbours and tweed for one of the sporting and social highlights of the year.
One of my predecessors as an Express political editor, the legendary Joe Saumarez Smith, managed to negotiate a clause in his contract enabling him to enjoy Cheltenham week uninterrupted.
Alas, I don’t have that luxury, but I will be spending a day off at the races on Thursday.
Richer or poorer, almost certainly the latter, I will be back at my keyboard the following day to bring you more thrills and spills from inside Westminster.
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