Let's Listen With Mother as Smug Dave beats up poor Auntie Hattie
0 Comments | Herald, The; Glasgow (UK), Jul 8, 2010
PRIME Minister’s Questions turned briefly into Listen With Mother yesterday with Auntie Hattie Harman trying to embarrass those smug Lib-Con schoolboys but having the tables turned.
In her best schoolmam tones, the big H upbraided Ken Bagpuss Clarke as well as the LibDems for being cool on the idea of short prison sentences, that, she argued, were often necessary.
Eyeing Bagpuss – famous lover of jazz, fine cigars, suede shoes and offices of state – frowning on the Government frontbench, Hattie noted: “I notice the Justice Secretary is not looking very cheerful. Perhaps he should go down to Ronnie Scott’s to cheer himself up.” At which, Bagpuss stirred into life and dismissed the barb with a flick of his paw.
Turning her fire to the yellow peril, she told Dave with Calamity Clegg sitting next to him: “Can I congratulate the Prime Minister for instead of listening to his new partner, listening to his mother. Because in the election his mother was a magistrate and she told him magistrates need the powers of short sentences.
“Quite often it is the right thing for somebody not to listen to their new partner but to their mother.”
Dave was not fazed, leant on the despatch box and quipped: “In my experience, there are very few people more cheerful than the Lord Chancellor.”
The Tory toff had not finished, saying he was “delighted the right honourable lady has brought up the issue of my mother”. He continued by recalling that one of the reasons his mum “needed to have short sentences was mostly for badly behaved CND protesters outside Greenham Common”.
Hattie, rumoured to be one of the Greenham Common “ladies”, knew exactly what was coming next.
“I don’t know whether she was there
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