(Mind Your) PMQs

Prime Minister’s Question Time

‘Mr Peter Digsyby – Smythe!’

‘Question Number 1’

‘Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I am sure that the whole House will join me in offering our condolences to the families and friends of the villagers of Little Thrushwarts who, this week, found that their search for Spunky ended in tragedy. Spunky was a much-loved dog of good character with a taste for immigrant flesh. The well is to be filled in and capped tomorrow. Police will be continuing their investigations of the nearby labour camp. And I’m sure the House also join me in paying tribute to our former colleague Horace Douglas-Hamilton. I am confident the allegations will be found to be baseless.

‘Mr Speaker this afternoon I will have meetings with many colleagues. Later in the week I will have more meetings with even more colleagues.’

‘Mr Peter Digsby – Smythe’

‘Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to associate myself with the Spunky comments and with the family of the Right Honourable Horace Douglas-Hamilton.

‘Mr Speaker, Amber Valley is rightly concerned with the current lack of certain vegetable products on the shelves of their local mini-marts.  Specifically, broccoli and lettuce where rationing to three clumps per family per week is causing unrest and minor scuffles in the high street. Can my Right Honourable friend assure me that she will listen carefully to these concerns? Because I want to be able to say to my constituents that we are the party of vegetables.’

‘I thank my Right Honourable friend for his question. I can reassure him that I have meetings that will address the temporary shortage of broccoli, carrots, potatoes and lettuce. These meetings will, in time, I feel sure, bring forth much fruit and vegetables for the good people of Amber Valley to enjoy and that their mini-marts and tables will soon be over brimming with turnips and that scuffles will be a thing of the past, to be remembered only by strolling minstrels in their songs. I recognize that this party is the one committed to putting in extra funding into vegetables.  And, indeed, that any future scufflers will be righteously truncheoned and banged up with the other immigrants.’

‘Leader of the Opposition’

‘I too would like to offer my condolences to Spunky and that other bloke who was fiddling his expenses.

‘Mr Speaker, at last week’s Prime Minister’s question time, the Prime Minister told the house, ‘I’m not a fan of peas’. ‘

‘Order! Order!’

‘Peas. Mr Speaker, peas. I believe she did go on to admit that she had them with liver once.  Once! Now, I would like to remind my Right Honourable friends, the Ministers for Brexit, Health and Education, that peas where once readily available, whether she liked them or not!

‘Now, I have a question. Does anybody know what this is? Anybody? Well I am not surprised. This is the last clump of broccoli to be found in my local mini-mart or Spar Shop as I believe it is called. You may think that it has wilted? Well, it has. In fact, it was on the floor, under the vegetable boxes themselves. Now what does she have to say about that?

‘Mr Speaker, I am not surprised the Right Honourable Member does not know what broccoli looks like, representing, as he does, Bolton. His constituents would not recognise a vegetable if they saw one. The shopkeeper buys broccoli in vain, knowing it can never be sold, which is why it was kicked under the box in the first place. They would not recognise broccoli, turnip, carrots or indeed, the Right Honourable Member himself, looking, as he does, like the last turkey in the shop.’

‘Order! Order!’

‘Mr Speaker, it is well known, in this house, that the Prime Minister is partial to the stuffing of old birds as her husband will no doubt testify. But, he won’t be stuffing any turkeys with any broccoli any time soon, will he? Broccoli is nowhere to be seen on our highstreets, your highstreets or anybody’s highstreets. Let me ask the Prime Minister this. What will she do to satisfy my constituents needs for their five a day?

‘Mr Speaker, I thank the Right Honourable member for his question. I would say to him this. It is much better to be an old fowl getting a regular stuffing than to be a foul old twat who can get stuffed. I can also assure him that his constituents tell me that they are already getting it five times a day. Which is more than he’ll ever get.

‘Furthermore, I say this to the House. Since our former European partners have stopped their shipments of broccoli to our shores, preferring instead to deal with the Middle East – where, I may add, broccoli is to be found in abundance – we have struck up exciting new trade deals with those countries. Soon broccoli will be flowing into the United Kingdom from the Gulf States.

‘Hear, Hear’

‘Leader of the Opposition’

‘Is the Prime Minister really saying that we will be getting our broccoli from Spain via the Middle East? Is that what she is saying? That we will get second hand vegetables that have been shunted down the Mediterranean, spent hours in boxes, being attacked by flies, on the quayside in the desert sun of Kuwait and then shunted back up the Mediterranean and thence to us?  Well, what about celery then, eh? What does she have to say about celery? Where will we get our sticks of celery?’

‘Order! Order!’

‘I say to him this. He can stick his celery up his arse.’