The week in politics: Fight club!
We should have seen Wednesday night's Commons contretemps coming…
By Alex Stevenson Follow @alex__stevenson
MPs often like to portray themselves as peace-loving people with sweet, quiet-loving temperaments. Yet this week there's been a bit more sturm und drang about parliament than usual. The atmosphere, we must be frank, has been one of exasperation, confrontation – even aggression. A certain Commons contretemps involving an inebriated Labour backbencher was, perhaps, the climax of a storm that had been brewing all week.
One politician who would much rather his job did not involve angry confrontations is Andrew Lansley, who found himself in the middle of an awkward, embarrassing mob opposing his NHS reforms outside Downing Street on Monday. When you're up against this level of hostility there's not really any way of salvaging anything from the situation; the correct response to being heckled and booed at point blank range is to beat a tactical retreat as soon as possible. Lansley attempted this, but only after enduring something of a mauling.
He was in better form during PMQs, when Ed Miliband raised NHS reforms yet again. Thanks to a leaked Labour briefing the PM was able to hold his own a little more effectively than in past weeks. The exchanges were choppy, disturbed, far more openly hostile than usual. It was a session which both sides finished thinking they had emerged on top. We gave it as a draw, not having the capacity of boxing judges to draw up a verdict on points.
This was the atmosphere in which Eric Joyce found himself, therefore, as he approached Wednesday evening and his fists' date with several Tory MPs. He got himself so worked up in the Commons' Strangers bar on Wednesday night he now faces charge for assault. Accounts from the bar vary, but it's hard to get away from the impression that well-known rabble-rousers like Genghis Khan and bulls in china shops could have taken the Falkirk MP's correspondence course.
This is the sort of behaviour which Speaker John Bercow clamped down on hard. But not all were following his example, as the following tale demonstrates. Consider Westminster's reaction to the behaviour of Adele, the singer who showed teeth – or rather, her middle finger – when her acceptance speech was cut short at the Brits.
Politicians are naturally sympathetic to those who show umbrage at being interrupted. They experience this all the time. But surely it was wrong of the leader of the Commons, Sir George Young – usually the mildest-mannered of men – to voice his approval of Adele's rather bombastic response? "I share her disappointment that her speech was cut short by what she calls 'the suits'," he observed to MPs on Thursday, with that characteristic twinkle in his eye. Given how many 'suits' there are in the Palace of Westminster, is this an invitation for similar unparliamentary behaviour in future?
The only conclusion which must, sadly, be reached is that British politics is becoming an unpleasant sort of place. There is bullying to be had on all sides. Hence the confrontational behaviour of Scottish secretary Michael Moore towards Holyrood, for example, or Liam Fox's thoroughly unsubtle behaviour in demanding tax cuts ahead of next month's Budget. Still, neither of these conflicts have yet descended into the kind of physicality displayed by Mr Joyce on Wednesday night. For that, at least, we should be thankful.
