Davos? Pah! Who wants to be eating £35 hotdogs with oligarchs anyway? Andrea Leadsom, who but for a rare moment of sanity in the Tory party six months ago could have become prime minister, was more in her element yesterday answering questions about hill farming, tree-planting and the common agricultural policy.
The environment secretary is never knowingly undersmiled. She has the radiant, slightly forced, grin that you see on presenters of daytime adverts aimed at the older generation. The look of someone destined to sell stairlifts, sun awnings and river cruises.
Yesterday, while Theresa May was keeping billionaires from their morning ski lessons, Mrs Leadsom was doing her eyes-and-teeth routine in the Commons. Brexit, she said, was a “great opportunity”, putting Tony the Tiger levels of emphasis on “great”, while her plans for food and farming feature “great ambitions and we will achieve them”.
She was tremendously earnest but didn’t give much detail about these plans, nor how they will be achieved. Why dampen the enthusiasm? The closest she came to expressing a policy was to say that she wanted greater standards of animal welfare after Brexit. Everything post-Brexit will be grrreat.
Her beatific smile didn’t even slip under friendly fire. Stephen Crabb (C, Preseli Pembrokeshire) thinks our fruit farmers won’t survive without seasonal labour from Europe. Bill Wiggin (C, North Herefordshire) said Mrs Leadsom didn’t have a clue about nitrate-vulnerable zones. Philip Hollobone (C, Kettering) wanted to bring back rationing since people were better nourished during the war.
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Mrs Leadsom just beamed away. Brexit is happening and all is right with the world. The only time she got slightly tetchy was when Rachael Maskell (Lab, York Central) suggested she wasn’t tackling the ivory trade. Perhaps Mrs Leadsom associates elephants with that awful Euro-enthusiast Donald Tusk?
The session was overshadowed by one of the most important occasions in the parliamentary calendar. Only the Queen’s Speech and the budget rank above the honouring of John Bercow’s birthday, an event that the Speaker celebrated by relaxing his rule about pithiness and allowing MPs to exercise what Mr Bercow himself would call, in that archaic way of his, their most effusive and blandiloquent verbiage. Emma Lewell-Buck (Lab, South Shields) was the first to wish him a happy birthday. “I hope you have a good ’un,” she chirruped. “Eurgh!” groaned a few Tories, but they were just as toadying. “Long life, Mr Speaker,” hailed Bob Blackman (C, Harrow East). “Let’s plant a birthday tree,” trilled the sunny Rebecca Pow (C, Taunton Deane). “Live long and prosper,” added Oliver Colvile (C, Plymouth Sutton & Devonport), a Star Trek fan one assumes.
Matt Warman (C, Boston & Skegness) forgot to wait for the answer to his tabled question before posing his supplementary and was reined in by the Speaker. “I was overwrought with the excitement of your birthday,” he said.
This was all a bit OTT. You almost expected the serjeant at arms to wheel in a cake from which a fishnetted Diane Abbott would burst and purr “happy birthday, Mr Speaker” while draped over the dispatch box. That would be enough to take the smile off even Mrs Leadsom’s face.