Why Labour’s Commons defeat over Greensill wasn’t really a defeat at all

The Labour motion raised the profile of the issue and, while they never expected to win, the announcement of an inquiry that came shortly afterward will put a smile on Starmer’s face, writes Sean O’Grady

An inquiry will follow Starmer’s intervention (via REUTERS)

Labour’s latest attempt to embarrass the government about David Cameron’s lobbying activities, which even the former premier himself admits were ill-judged, used a parliamentary procedure known as an “opposition day” debate. This means that a motion is put to the House of Commons in terms entirely of the opposition’s choosing. Conventionally, the government of the day has an iron grip on the business of the house, but even so it permits some 20 opportunities during each parliamentary session when the opposition is allowed to dictate business. In this case the Labour Party opted to call for a parliamentary inquiry into Cameron, Greensill Capital and minsters such as Rishi Sunak and Matt Hancock, which was followed by a Labour-inspired debate on the size of armed forces. Both were chosen in part because Labour was aware that many Tory backbenchers have reservations about what has been happening on these fields, and that, therefore, they might at least get some lukewarm support or helpful interventions by Tory MPs asking their own minister the odd awkward question. (Of the 20, 17 days are allocated to the leader of the official opposition, and three days to the leader of the second largest opposition party, who shares the time with smaller parties in the House of Commons).

Governments, especially in this case, tend to signal their lofty contempt for proceedings by dispatching the most junior of ministers to answer the most senior members of the opposition front bench. Thus it was that obscure cabinet office minister Chloe Smith was sent in to answer Anneliese Dodds and Rachel Reeves. Smith it was who put in the most spectacularly bad broadcast performance in the entire decade of the 2010s, with the possible exception of Green Party leader Natalie Bennett’s “brain fog” of 2015. Smith was torn apart by Jeremy Paxman over a fuel duty U-turn in 2012, and it still makes for excellent viewing. Fortunately for her she is on better form these days.