Gladiator time!
Mel "Maximus" Stride faces Angela "Spartacus" Rayner
Waiting in the wings as he prepared to face Angela Rayner, Mel Stride looked nervous. Keir Starmer was abroad again, and so the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (there’s no shame if you didn’t know) was the latest member of Kemi Badenoch’s front bench to be served up at Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions. As he prepared for his gladiatorial tussle with Angela Rayner, he fiddled with his phone and shifted from foot to foot. Colleagues patted his back as they went past. His demeanour was less “what we do in life echoes in eternity” and more morituri te salutant.
The Conservative leader’s decision to offer the slot to a different member of her front bench every week has advantages: it keeps things fresh and allows them to ask about their areas of expertise. There are other, more base benefits. It’s elementary Machiavelli to secure a shaky leadership by making potential challengers fight each other. Although if we’re being honest, the current shadow cabinet isn’t so much Game of Thrones as Guess Who?
And tomorrow on War Movie Theatre…
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