Alex Burghart’s 15 minutes of lame

With Keir Starmer once again away on his latest beano – if it’s Wednesday, it must be Brazil – it was deputy prime minister Angela Rayner stepping up at PMQs this week.

In recent times, this would have meant Oliver Dowden facing her, continuing their unlikely will-they-won’t-they romance. But Dowden is now lounging on the backbenches, dreaming, if reports are to be believed, of the House of Lords. And Kemi Badenoch, for whatever reason, chose not to appoint a deputy.

So, we’re told, when Starmer is away she will put up a guest opposition leader in her place, like Have I Got News For You. And today we got… Alex Burghart!

You know, Alex Burghart? Alex Burghart? Shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster? Former teacher? Wrote a PhD on The Mercian polity, 716–918? Sat on the board of Yarlington Housing Group? That Alex Burghart.

Chances are you don’t know Alex Burghart, in which case here are the things to know about him. His stellar CV includes stints as parliamentary private secretary to prime minister Boris Johnson during the Partygate fiasco and as minister responsible for growth under the Liz Truss interregnum. He now shadows a role that nobody really understands. He looks a bit like Reece Shearsmith from a certain angle (and has a visual tic of fiddling with his glasses, which is the sort of thing Shearsmith might give a fictional Tory MP). And he likes to SHOUT.

He started badly and got worse. “What is the government doing to bring down inflation?” he demanded to know.

Rayner struggled not to laugh. “Well, Mr Speaker, I think it’s astonishing… many people might not know, but the honourable member was the minister for growth under Liz Truss when inflation was 11.1% and growth flatlined, so we’re doing much better than he did.”

Slightly floored by that, Burghart started his shouting. Now, one of the first things even the most amateur of stand-ups learns is that you shouldn’t shout into a microphone. But this hasn’t reached the shadow CotDoL, so shout he did. And then shouted some more.

“We’ve already talked about Ukraine, Mr Speaker. It was UKRAINE and COVID that drove up inflation. THIS GOVERNMENT is DOING IT to the British people. HIGH TAX, HIGH INFLATION, LOW GROWTH, LOW REFORM! There’s a word for that, Mr Speaker! It’s STARMERISM!”. So pleased was he with this last bit that he bent down further so his mouth was even closer to the mic. Poor old shadow chancellor Mel Stride, sat next to him, visibly moved away.

Inevitably he moved on to farming. They disagreed on what percentage of commercial farms would come under the threshold for inheritance tax.

“The truth is UGLY,” hollered Burghart. “The truth is that this is a PUNISHMENT meted out to people who don’t vote Labour. IT’S THE SAME PUNISHMENT METED OUT TO PARENTS WHO SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS! IT’S THE SAME PUNISHMENT METED OUT TO OWNERS OF SMALL BUSINESSES TERRIFIED ABOUT NATIONAL INSURANCE CONTRIBUTIONS! AND IT’S THE SAME PUNISHMENT METED OUT TO PENSIONERS WHO CAN’T AFFORD TO PAY FOR WINTER FUEL THIS WINTER!

“Isn’t it the TRUTH, Mr Speaker, that if you DON’T VOTE LABOUR, they DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU!”

Rayner just smiled. “Well, Mr Speaker, with that display he clearly doesn’t recognise the result of the general election. And has learned nothing, while this government has been fixing the mess that they left, the Conservatives have been desperately trying to rewrite history. They come here every week jumping on a new bandwagon, taking a new potshot, but absolutely no word on what they’ll do differently.”

A cynic may point out that this is technically how opposition politics works, but there you go. This was Alex Burghart’s first PMQs, almost certainly his last and you may now go back to having absolutely no idea who he is.

Elsewhere, it was a rather tepid affair. One Conservative MP, Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness), absurdly suggested Rachel Reeves should be jailed for tinkering with her LinkedIn profile. Another, Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne), asked if the deputy prime minister would “congratulate the Spelthorne Litter Pickers” for winning an award, the sort of thing which happens at Westminster and, quite possibly, no other national legislature in the world.

But the real action was the Speaker v Danny Kruger. Lindsay Hoyle, who has been in a foul mood of late, had a run-in with Kruger (Conservative, East Wiltshire), who he accused of mouthing off during Rayner’s clash with Burghart.

“We’ll have less as well, unless you want to have a cup of tea,” said Hoyle. “Have we heard any more? Is that it now? Yes or no? You’re the one that was mouthing.” Kruger protested that he hadn’t moved his mouth. “Well, I’m sorry, you must be able to do it like a ventriloquist! Stop it!” fumed Hoyle.

At the end of the session he came back, rather more sheepishly.

“Just for the record, I’d like to apologise to Mr Kruger. I got the wrong person. Mr Wild [James Wild, North West Norfolk] has now owned up to it. What I would say is, don’t sit next to him again.” He would not, it’s fair to say, have enjoyed that.