Oh dear, calamity Lammy. He is a walking, talking disaster. A jumble of a human being. If David Lammy were in the Mr Men he would be Mr Forgetful, Mr Wrong, Mr Grumpy, Mr Fib, Mr Muddle and Mr Nonsense all rolled into one. We’ll stick with Mr Calamity for now.
He was given the simple task of standing in for Keir Starmer during PMQs while the Prime Minister jetted off to the Amazon jungle to help save the planet from global warming. Not exactly a tough act to follow for Sir Keir’s second in command.
Across the dispatch from Mr Calamity was shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge, the silver fox of the Tory front bench.
What was expected to be a quiet, humdrum Wednesday lunchtime Commons clash was anything but.
It started to go badly for Mr Calamity pretty much from the beginning and turned into what might be the worst PMQs performance ever.
After opening the session by making a sombre Remembrance tribute it quickly became apparent he wasn’t wearing a poppy. An embarrassing oversight perhaps?
The bungling Justice Secretary made matters worse when he was given one which belonged to a decorated RAF war hero from the Labour benches in order to spare his blushes.
He blamed the blunder on him buying a new suit on Wednesday morning because his Godmother would be watching.
In isolation this would have been bad enough for Mr Calamity.
But he wasn’t done yet.
Asked four, five, possibly six times – no-one, not even the Speaker was quite sure – if any more asylum seekers had been wrongly released from prison since sex attacker Hesdush Kebatu, the justice secretary refused to answer.
Mr Calamity soon became Mr Angry, craning forward over the dispatch box, arms flailing and fingers jabbing.
The silver fox appeared startled but kept pressing again and again.
It turned out that, indeed, there had been another migrant sex offender accidentally released from HMP Wandsworth a week ago.
The Tories knew shortly before PMQs and Lammy knew too.
There was still time for the bizarre revelation that a DNA test showed he is 5% Scottish.
If, and that is a very big if, Mr Calamity ever does PMQs again he could come wearing a kilt.
McCalamity anyone?
