'It's good that Sunak backs Zelensky - but this can't heal our wounded economy'
PMQs this week was completely overshadowed by the presence of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
MPs were verging on giddy – like when you are at school and you have got sports day in the afternoon or something.
Who can concentrate on the actual business of the day?
Mr Starmer was in bullish mood: “This terrible conflict must end with the defeat of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.”
Hopefully, that will happen soon. Mr Sunak reckons probably this year. Not sure about that one.
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It was nice for Mr Zelensky though. A house coming together to pledge various levels of support.
Mr Sunak has already promised tanks, and added the UK will soon start training Ukrainian marines and teach pilots how to fly advanced combat aircraft.
The UK has just about avoided a recessionMr Starmer also added he would like to see Mr Putin tried at the Hague when all this is done. Again, not sure.
Still, it was nice to see them putting their differences to one side and a united house.
Mr Zelensky presented the Speaker with a Ukrainian fighter pilot’s helmet signed with the inscription: “We have freedom. Give us wings to protect it,” which was hailed as a heartfelt statement but put me more in mind of that Bodyform advert from the 90s.
Anyways, the country is working hard on foreign policy at the moment.
The Turkish/Syrian earthquake gets more horrifying by the second – more than 22,000 deaths as I write. The UK is setting up a field hospital and we are sending a Hercules out there to move casualties. Isn’t it better when we’re like this? Outward looking, sending help to people in crisis? Much better. At home, there was some economic news that was sort of decent.
Ukrainian rescuers in Kharkiv (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)We have avoided recession, said the Office for National Statistics, before the Bank of England added: only for now.
Not good for Mr Sunak. People were looking for him to come in and steady the ship, and he was billed as a safe pair of hands. The fact we are still in economic danger suggests that’s not worked, and the polls reflect that. A little narrowing but still 19 points for Labour – big majority territory.
Mr Sunak’s reshuffle did not really help either. You probably missed it at the start of the week, and no one could fault you for it, a lot of people did. The PM fiddled about with a couple of departments, moved some people from here to there – nothing that altered the key elements of the Cabinet.
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Tory MP Lee Anderson was promoted to deputy chair“Beyond disappointing,” one backbench Tory MP told me, sadly.
“Was that because you wanted a job?”
“Oh God no. Not even slightly. Not with this lot anyway,” which is the prevailing mood.
In the real kicker to the week, Lee Anderson got promoted to deputy chair. He likes the death penalty. In an interview he said: “Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed.”
There are so many things wrong with that sentence that I really don’t have the space/energy to deal with here. Another time, perhaps.
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