The Sketch: Simon Carr

New phrases for the same old parliamentary manoeuvres

Grammarians may be more interested in this than philologists but (Wake up! You can't read and sleep! You're not resting your eyes!) two new locutions surfaced in parliament this week. Tony Blair said to Jacqui Lait: "I say to you and through you..."

Exactly what was said through the defenceless creature needn't detain us. It certainly didn't detain Tony Blair. But to speak through someone seemed a very parliamentary thing to do. Mysterious. Masterful. Slightly cruel. Mr Blair was using Mrs Lait as his megaphone without co-operating her first.

That's the second new usage. It's very contemporary. The transitive use of "co-operate".

Robin Cook was assuring the house that the select committees could be up and running five weeks after the election date (a mere five weeks! Imagine what they'll be able to do in five years!) because they had "fully co-operated" the Opposition.

Quite what this means has yet to emerge. It's more than consulting them, and may be even more than getting their consent. If you co-operated people frequently enough you'd end up co-opting them. Without actually seeing Mr Cook co-operating Conservatives, something only a fully-trained anthropologist should witness, we shall reserve judgement.

But it's language (like "outwith") that only politicians use: for the simple reason that everyone else (I'm including football hooligans) are simply too fastidious. The transitive use of "eco-operate" is also perfectly political, in that it makes the word mean the opposite of itself. "Co-operate" is something that two parties do with each other, not something one party does to another. "I co-operated him, but the marks won't show. Except in the showers."

Having shaken off the low-minded readership let us relax.

When Douglas Hogg stood up, a heckler softly went: "Moo!" Twice.

Margaret Becket, the new minister of the new department of rural affairs has a new persona for us. She speaks with her eyes shut. She has also Thatcherised her voice by dropping it two full tones. These are not reasons of themselves to speak drivel.

The Opposition tried to get her to commit to a certain sort of inquiry into the foot-and-mouth epidemic.

The hierarchy of inquiries seems to be this. An inquiry is not an inquiry, it's a sherry party. A proper inquiry shows that no-one is to blame. A full independent public inquiry shows everyone is to blame.

Obviously, Mr Blair wants a proper inquiry rather than a full one.

To continue.

Old Etonian Henry Bellingham made a vigorous defence of fox-hunting people. "That's a nice blue tie, Henry!" as a club comedian might say. "Or is it a nose bleed!"

The sixth rule of public life is well known – you just can't trust Old Etonians. Father of the House Tam Dalyell helped us realise this yesterday.

He has abandoned the commissioner for standards, the vigorous and independent Elizabeth Filkin.

Grovelling in the moral lowlands, twisted MPs yelp and bark for her contract to be terminated; in the sunlit uplands Mr Winnick pleads to keep her. Mr Dalyell, who is simply too decrepit to sit on a fence with dignity, ingratiates himself with both sides of the question by asserting that no-one, not even the archangel Gabriel should be the commissioner for more than four years. (I've told Gabriel. Sorry.)

The Speaker defends Mrs Filkin. The Sketch thunderously defends the Speaker.

Can you make sense of this? Its all too bewildering.

Mrs Filkin doesn't conduct inquiries or proper inquiries. She investigates.

MPs can't speak through her. They can't co-operate her. It's the reason they want her gone.