QUENTIN LETTS: Maiden Farage had Lefty ranks steaming like a dumpling stall

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Heckling is not allowed in maidens, so Nigel Farage had the near unprecedented experience of making a speech without hearing screams of protest from Lefties.

It must have been almost unnerving for old frog-face. He cheerfully goaded them but protests came there none, save for a few murmurs of agreement when he admitted that bien-pensants had long been seen as ‘a sad, lonely, desperate figure, always seeking attention’.

That won ‘yeahs’ from Labour. Farage, beaming: ‘Thank you!’ The Reform party leader happily ignored another convention – that maidens should avoid controversy. He vented his thoughts about immigration. He called for a referendum on our membership of the European Court of Human Rights. He curled a lip about this being ‘very much a Remainers’ Parliament, and I suspect it is really a Rejoiners’ Parliament’.

And he had a good dig at the expenses you can claim as a member of the European Parliament in Brussels. No wonder the British elite was so keen on the EU, he suggested.

A newly elected Nigel Farage making his maiden speech in the House of Commons today (pictured)

A newly elected Nigel Farage making his maiden speech in the House of Commons today (pictured)

The Reform leader standing with paper clutched between his hands as he looks at the rest of Parliament

The Reform leader standing with paper clutched between his hands as he looks at the rest of Parliament

Labour’s massed ranks had to swallow all this without yelping their annoyance. They just sat there, steaming like woks at a Chengdu dumpling stall, eyeballs bulging a little as Clacton’s blushing debutant offered them his thoughts.

These being the parliament’s first days, it is the season of maiden speeches. Plenty of them are dreadful. Why do these gulping, script-reading, cliche-spouting bores stand for Parliament when they are so bad at public speaking?

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Nigel Farage uses maiden Commons speech to slam ‘Remainer Parliament’

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Politics is, surely, about philosophy, morality, history, the power of the spoken word; yet here were unintellectual dullards dribbling on about their local football teams, their office assistants, their local wine bars, their goddamn hobbies.

Club rules at Westminster demand that you should not be rude about a maiden speech. Stuff club rules. The new Lib Dem from Cheltenham is a drab clunker and his colleague from Wimbledon should be kept away from after-dinner lecterns at all costs.

Beccy from Worthing West (now a Labour seat following the destruction of poor Peter Bottomley) was everything you would expect of a former public health professional, pulling a drippy face as she talked about the importance of ‘keeping us safe’ during lockdown. ‘For too long,’ she vouchsafed, ‘our politics has been making people sick.’ She was actually talking about mental health but Beccy, a classic of the 21st-century ruling class, spoke more truth than she realised.

The new Tory MP for Fylde gassed about his achievements as – drum roll – a police and crime commissioner. Nobody cares about them, matey. In the course of an unremittingly damp speech from Andy MacNae (Lab, Rossendale & Darwen) his own party’s chief whip screwed up his eyes, as if thinking ‘dear God, who let in that nudnik?’, and fled the chamber.

The Clacton MP's speech was among three hours of maiden speeches heard in the House of Commons today

The Clacton MP’s speech was among three hours of maiden speeches heard in the House of Commons today

Lola McEvoy Labour MP for Darlinton, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer chatting with an owner of a wine and cheese shop in Darlinton on April 26

Lola McEvoy Labour MP for Darlinton, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer chatting with an owner of a wine and cheese shop in Darlinton on April 26

Reform UK chairman, Richard Tice, standing outside the House of Commons in Westminster on July 9

Reform UK chairman, Richard Tice, standing outside the House of Commons in Westminster on July 9

Ashford’s Sojan Joseph (Lab) so bewitched his audience that two party sisters sitting directly behind him pulled out their mobile telephones and busied themselves with something more interesting. Then there was Lola McEvoy (Lab, Darlington), bursting with self-fascination, a career trade union organiser and politician who boasted: ‘I work hard and I don’t want to be taken for a fool’. Too late, lady.

A couple of exceptions: Jo White, new Labour MP for Bassetlaw, managed to convey an urgency about the importance of aspiration in the neglected under-class; a sparkly Lib-Dem chap from Eastbourne, having announced that there are now seven MPs called Josh, paid eloquent tribute to the late Ian Gow, a Tory predecessor who was murdered by the IRA in 1990.

And Reform’s Richard Tice (Boston & Skegness) made a pretty decent maiden speech, too, talking without rancour about his electors’ desire to see immigration reduced. He had to put up with some grumbling from the Labour benches and they were reminded by Sir Edward Leigh, from the chair, to behave themselves.

One person not there for Mr Tice’s speech was his own party leader. Mr Farage had skidded off, quite possibly in the direction of a bar or a TV camera, as soon as he could. Poor Tice. Cinderella again.




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