Most Rev Keir Starmer starts new term at Westminster High with hope and a prayer

Does it represent some campaign to save the badger or to free Angola? “It’s whatever’s on the front of the Boden catalogue,” explained a junior MP. Good news! Our new masters have style and a sense of humour.

Here’s the seating arrangement for a landslide Commons: Labour crow-barred onto the Government side, overspill in the gallery; Tories opposite, closest to the Speaker; Lib Dems, nearest the entrance.

Behind the liberals, a miserable looking SNP, Plaid, the Greens, the Ulsters and then the odds and sods of a country near civil war.

Jeremy Corbyn arrived with his collar askew; no doubt the alarm clock failed to ring. MPs had started getting their seats an hour before, yet Reform gave it just 20 minutes, so were forced to stand, appropriately, at the bar (and next to Labour’s Louise Haigh, who, as if gifted with second sight, had dyed her hair Ukip purple).

A kind backbencher offered their seat to Nigel. He squeezed into the middle at the top next to a terrifying man from Traditional Unionist Voice and a stone’s throw from the Gaza independents. This bizarre grouping is what Lee Anderson might call a “no-go area”.

“It is Black Rod! Open the door!” The fun started. The Mace was presented, “all hail the holy stick”; Sir Lindsay Hoyle was renominated for Speaker.

“I have served”, he said, “under three prime ministers, two monarchs and one Jim Shannon” – the loquacious (but loved) DUP member.

Hoyle was nominated by fellow Lancastrian Cat Smith, who joked that it was nice to see “someone in the chair who doesn’t have an accent” – the funniest speech of the day, marred only by Barry Gardiner’s phone going off (I swear the ringtone was The East is Red).

Hoyle was elected unopposed. Smith and David Davis dragged him to the chair, and the speeches of congratulations began.

Thank you for your service, said Sir Keir Starmer, who seems to think he is not PM but the Archbishop of Canterbury, and led us in a prayer to “hope and trust”.

This is “the most diverse parliament by race and gender this country has ever seen,” he preached, with “the largest number of LGBTQ+ people of any parliament in the world” (true, but France leads us on bigamists and Japan on people married to a cushion). Rishi Sunak said “sorry” (again). Ed Davey garnered groans by being discourteously partisan.

The new father of the House is Sir Edward Leigh, who paid tribute to Parliament’s “diversity of thought” – this will include MPs who never think, and can barely read – while Diane Abbott, our new mother, observed how much more welcoming the modern Commons is.

“When I was a new MP, they just gave you a bunch of keys.” Her hands trembled but her voice was compelling. The Most Rev Keir wanted rid of her; I’m sure she hasn’t forgotten.

An end to tribal politics?

Stephen Flynn of the SNP gave the air of the naughtiest boy in the school (if you want to score cigarettes, he’s the kid to speak to).

The DUP made no apology for Jim Shannon. Plaid spoke Welsh. The Greens, also on brand, were represented by a “co-leader” (pronouns he/she/them/Stonehenge) and read their speech from a tiny sheet of paper as if determined to avoid waste.

We yearn for an end to tribal politics, said Swampy; the nationalist SDLP nodded towards the unionist DUP and said they look forward to that, too.

Finally: Farage. “We are the new kids on the block”, he proclaimed, but we know that you, Mr Speaker, have a reputation for fairness and “dignity”.

The House held its breath: was Nigel going to be nice? He continued “...in marked contrast to the little man that was there before you and besmirched the office” – and the pleasantries ended.

Evoking memories of John Bercow is akin to reminding diners at a banquet of the experience of food poisoning.

We made a note: “Nigel is determined to be a difficult boy.” One suspects the Speaker will soon have to resort to the cane.

The Tories slipped away to elect a new 1922 Committee chairman. They look tired and angry. Mark Francois arrived too late to vote, insisted he was misinformed on the timings, and yelled “This election was bent!” He won his seat, by the way, following a surprise endorsement by Eastenders’ Ross Kemp.

The word “diversity” might give Suella Braverman a heart attack, but I’m pleased to say that the Labour landslide is no monolith, that the new Parliament promises colour and breadth.

As the MPs lined up to swear in – Keir first, affirming – I spotted a remarkable array of religious books on the Commons Table, including the King James, the Bible in Welsh and Gaelic, the Torah, the Zohar, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammapada Way of Truth and the Book of Mormon. All that was missing was Dianetics by L Ron Hubbard, but we’ll get there someday.

And the star of this Parliament is not even human. It’s a dog called Jennie, the four-year old golden retriever accompanying Lib Dem Steve Darling, who is registered blind. She lay patiently on the floor, a model of etiquette.

Later, I said hello to Mr Darling, who recalled that when he was leader of Torbay Council, he once brought Jennie to a dinner in Parliament.

Her favourite thing is to lean her chin on people’s knees, so she wandered about under the table doing just that – causing some to think they were being interfered with by the diner sitting next to them. 

Mr Darling said they “didn’t know whether to slap or smile”.