On a more reconciliatory note, Olive noted this was the last time they would be sparring. He asked Ange a soft-ball question about the King and the Commonwealth. Initially Ange reciprocated: “I will miss our exchanges,” she told him, before bellowing: “It was the battle of the gingers!” Olive giggled like a schoolgirl.
In his final “more a comment than a question”, Olive observed that the Commonwealth was “joined together by historic and cultural ties – much like the pair of us”. The threatened pub brawl had turned into a love-in. Big Ange made the sign of a heart at him, a bit like when gorillas try to communicate with their handlers.
Despite her simian signalling, Ange was decidedly less magnanimous in her final answer, choosing instead to score some points: Olive was, she claimed, retiring from a Tory party in denial. She accused them of helping oil companies, scrapping the minimum wage and maternity leave. Olive looked a bit shocked – all’s fair in love and war, apparently.
Daisy Cooper, dressed as the woman from Disney’s Frozen, stood in for the Lib Dems, and asked about social care. Would Big Ange make a promise that nothing in the budget would make life more difficult for carers? Big Ange stuttered. “I don’t want to make promises with the Chancellor right beside me,” she chuckled awkwardly.
Ange might have tried to laugh it off, but next to her the Playmobil Chancellor sat steely-eyed, and giving every signal that the Budget was going to make the St Valentine’s Day Massacre look like an episode of the Tweenies.
A love-in it might have been, but with a brutal budget, a more combative Leader of the Opposition – whoever it is – soon to be announced, and the return of the tetchiest man in Britain from his Samoan jaunt, Ange and Olive’s Enchanted Evening won’t last much longer.
Forget Rodgers and Hammerstein: Rayner and Dowden sing the same old show tunes for PMQs
Sir Keir was away. What for – an anger management class? A freebie from Lord Alli? A trough-viewing? No, he was in Samoa with the Commonwealth Heads of Government. Lucky Heads of Government. Doubtless Sir Oinky is practising the pronunciation of “o lo’u tama o se fai meafaigaluega” (“my father was a toolmaker”) as we speak.
So it was back to the future! Welcome back to the ring Oliver ‘Olive’ Dowden and ‘Big’ Ange Rayner. It was a bit like when they tried to revive the Carry Ons in the early 90s when only a couple of the stars were still alive.
Olive’s main line of questioning was on Labour’s inevitable tax hike via National Insurance, coming next week when animated Playmobil figure Rachel Reeves will treat us to the least cheery budget since Henry VIII told Anne Boleyn not to bother buying any new hats. “Working people will pay when employers pass on the hike in National Insurance,” quoth Olive, repeating the words of none other than Big Ange right back at her.
“Does she at least agree with herself?” he pouted. Ange leaned into the despatch box as if it were the bar of the Rovers Return and eyed up Olive like a soon-to-be-eviscerated pint of Mild. In the end she just shouted at him to apologise for “14 years”. Sir Oinky might have been in the South Pacific but his repeated lines lived on in the hands of Big Ange. Less Happy Talk and more Carefully Taught, one suspects.
On a more reconciliatory note, Olive noted this was the last time they would be sparring. He asked Ange a soft-ball question about the King and the Commonwealth. Initially Ange reciprocated: “I will miss our exchanges,” she told him, before bellowing: “It was the battle of the gingers!” Olive giggled like a schoolgirl.
In his final “more a comment than a question”, Olive observed that the Commonwealth was “joined together by historic and cultural ties – much like the pair of us”. The threatened pub brawl had turned into a love-in. Big Ange made the sign of a heart at him, a bit like when gorillas try to communicate with their handlers.
Despite her simian signalling, Ange was decidedly less magnanimous in her final answer, choosing instead to score some points: Olive was, she claimed, retiring from a Tory party in denial. She accused them of helping oil companies, scrapping the minimum wage and maternity leave. Olive looked a bit shocked – all’s fair in love and war, apparently.
Daisy Cooper, dressed as the woman from Disney’s Frozen, stood in for the Lib Dems, and asked about social care. Would Big Ange make a promise that nothing in the budget would make life more difficult for carers? Big Ange stuttered. “I don’t want to make promises with the Chancellor right beside me,” she chuckled awkwardly.
Ange might have tried to laugh it off, but next to her the Playmobil Chancellor sat steely-eyed, and giving every signal that the Budget was going to make the St Valentine’s Day Massacre look like an episode of the Tweenies.
A love-in it might have been, but with a brutal budget, a more combative Leader of the Opposition – whoever it is – soon to be announced, and the return of the tetchiest man in Britain from his Samoan jaunt, Ange and Olive’s Enchanted Evening won’t last much longer.