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The Man in the Middle – Mother is a political junkie

Brexit has made Mother a political junkie. Itโ€™s put the drama back into democracy and the ping-pong into Parliament as far as she is concerned. She watches up to six hours a day of political news and has gone cold turkey on her usual diet of daytime movie re-runs without any regrets. 

She likes Select Committee enquiries, especially if the witnesses are disrespectful, and any debate in the Commons, so long as John Bercow is adjudicating. Most of all, she likes Prime Ministerโ€™s Question Time, which is her โ€˜appointment to viewโ€™ TV programme of the week. 

โ€˜I donโ€™t know why they keep criticising it for being like Punch and Judy, darling. Itโ€™s far more vicious and much, much more entertaining.โ€™

She loves PMQs because it’s like a bear-pit brawl

She has no truck with those who say Brexit has poisoned the political discourse and she loves PMQs precisely because it is a bear pit brawl. Perhaps all she is doing is being honest where others are not. 

โ€˜Is Bercow on today?โ€™ she says โ€˜I do so love to hate him. Classic short man syndrome. Like Napoleon,โ€™ she says. 

โ€˜Thereโ€™s no Parliament while thereโ€™s an election on. Besides heโ€™s leaving Parliament, heโ€™s stepped down,โ€™ I say.

This is bad news as far as Mother is concerned. She worries that the new Speaker wonโ€™t be the same โ€˜value for moneyโ€™. Worse, a new Speaker may take things back to the โ€˜boring old daysโ€™ of faux politesse and stupefying procedural interventions. Bercow going is like โ€˜Dirty Denโ€™ leaving EastEnders or the National without Olivier. I am too scared to tell her that the new Speaker is planning to ban clapping. 

โ€˜Itโ€™s the end of an era,โ€™ she says sadly. 

In the absence of Parliament TV, she gets her morning dose of politics from Sky News. At lunchtime she switches to the Daily Politics because she adores Jo Coburn, who is the sort of daughter sheโ€™d have wanted if she had ever had one.

“She knows how to keep those men on their toes.”

โ€˜She knows how to keep those men on their toes,โ€™ she says admiringly, as her thin fingers wriggle into a pack of Ritz biscuits. According to Mother, keeping me on their toes is a skill every girl should learn at an early age. 

โ€˜Thatโ€™ll teach him for not giving a straight answer,โ€™ she glows with pride every time Jo Coburn nails down an evasive spokesman. 

I donโ€™t remember Mother ever being interested in politics before Brexit. But I do remember that my Father occasionally volunteered for the local Conservative party. He took me out to deliver leaflets one evening. I think it was February 1974. After one road, he gave up and dumped the leaflets into a bin. 

โ€˜Too cold,โ€™ he said, turning to me. โ€˜Letโ€™s go to the pub.โ€™

I was slightly shocked. My dad was a litter lout. But I was also flattered: he wanted to hang out with me. I replay the memory to Mother. Is it true? 

โ€˜Probably.โ€™ She says. โ€˜Given the choice between the pub or politics, there was only going to be one winner. Heath lost that election. Probably your fatherโ€™s fault.โ€™

The Man in the Middle writes our funny, thoughtful blog series. Musings from a middle-aged man living with his aged Mother and the Family.

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