Tag: Benny Hill

I’ve been wondering how I would describe the sound MPs make during prime minister’s questions to an alien. If a Foley artist had to recreate it for a film’s soundtrack, they’d fill an old accordion with gin and throw it down a flight of stairs – it’s the only way to get that thudding braying noise, wheezing out malicious approval like a drunk uncle watching Benny Hill reruns. When all MPs of a party make it together, like an oral conga line of partisan snarls, it can turn incomprehensible nonsense into a jolly good idea, a fine example of British wit. This has never been truer than on Monday, as it spun gold from one of the stupidest sentences ever uttered in parliament, when Iain Duncan Smith told the prime minister to “remind [the EU] that cakes exist to be eaten, and cherries exist to be picked”. Brexit: MPs warn trade with 70 countries could 'fall off cliff edge' if transition plans not clarified soon - Politics live Read more As statements go, it’s not the most wrong thing that’s ever been said – cakes do exist to be eaten, and to an extent cherries exist to be picked (if he believes that the only function of nature is to serve humans, which, as a Thatcherite Tory, he probably does). But really it’s a play on the EU’s two criticisms of the British approach to Brexit: that we are trying to have our cake and eat it, and that we are trying to cherrypick the benefits of the EU without the responsibilities. They probably should have put it in terms IDS could understand, like: “You can’t impose benefit sanctions on someone who has already been killed by austerity.” IDS is not the only politician to spout nonsense in the hope of stoking the prejudices of his supporters But I don’t think Duncan Smith doesn’t really understand – which is much worse than if was completely incompetent. He knows that his comments don’t make sense – but he also knows they don’t have to. “Parliament erupts in laughter as IDS taunts the EU” was the headline in the Express, the only approval that Iain Duncan Smith was really seeking. Ten years ago, I heard the sound of the braying MPs in PMQs and thought it sounded outdated, a tedious relic from a more boisterous era.