I began business questions this week by looking ahead to Remembrance Sunday and paying tribute to all of those who have died serving this country and those who are currently serving. We owe them a great debt of gratitude.
The news this week has been dominated by rumours of a cover-up around allegations of sexual abuse in north Wales. The victims of child sexual abuse who come forward have suffered terribly. They should be listened to and supported. There are currently 13 separate overlapping government inquiries into the various allegations of sexual abuse of children and young people. So I reiterated Yvette Cooper’s call and asked the leader of the House, would it not be more appropriate to have one single, overarching inquiry that could get at the truth?
This week the Tory business managers in the House of Lords suddenly withdrew the electoral registration and administration bill which gerrymanders parliamentary boundaries to help the Tories win a majority. This panicked reaction came when they realised that both Labour and Lib Dem peers had tabled an amendment to delay the process. The government is wasting millions of pounds on an unfair, partisan review when there is clearly no longer a majority for it in the Commons. I called on the deputy prime minister to make a statement to confirm that the boundary changes won’t go ahead before the next election.
Yet again the prime minister missed PMQs for a foreign trip but miraculously made it back in time for dinner with the German chancellor Angela Merkel. But it isn’t just prime minister’s questions he’s taken to avoiding. The PM hasn’t held his monthly news conference since July… July 2011 that is! And now he has even banned journalists from flying on foreign trips with him. Clearly, when the going gets tough this prime minister stages his own version of: ‘I’m the prime minister, get me out of here!’
While the prime minister was away the mayor of London decided to sneak in and give Tory backbenchers a pep talk on … On loyalty! Whatever next, perhaps they’ll be inviting the deputy prime minister to talk to them about honouring your manifesto commitments.
Tory backbenchers are at each other’s throats. The government is divided. And the prime minister has gone AWOL. The country deserves better than this.
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Angela Eagle is MP for Wallasey, shadow leader of the Commons and writes the weekly Business of Parliament column for Progress. She tweets @AngelaEagle