Curtain’s up, house lights down, the stage is set – but where are the actors? The Westminster commentariat’s been squealing like little children in a sweet shop, only to find the shelves are bare. Or, as our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer puts it, there’s no immediate move to unseat the Prime Minister after all.
Of course that doesn’t mean there won’t be one. Or that there will be.
Confused? Dazed? Bored even? Understandable, given the deafening wall of noise coming from all sides all week.
At least there’s a small clump of standout facts which no one can argue with.
One, the likeliest contender for the top job from the right of the Labour party, Wes Streeting, did fling down the gauntlet in a flurry of uncomplimentary words about Keir Starmer.
However, it appears he hasn’t after all got the backing of enough MPs to force the contest to go ahead. Worse, the way’s suddenly become clear for a far likelier winner than him to take up arms.
Step forward the so-called King of the North Andy Burnham, currently not in the fight because he isn’t an MP, but could soon be thanks to an obliging chap who’s giving up his seat to let him have a crack at it.
The upside for Burnham is that as Greater Manchester Mayor he’s shown himself to be as first-rate a communicator as Starmer is completely hopeless.
Also, coming as he does from the left-leaning side of the party, he’s attuned to the instincts of the vast mass of ordinary Labour members. Meaning if we get as far as the actual vote he’d beat Streeting by miles.
However, to even get started he’s got to win the byelection in the place that’s just become available. And he may well not.
That’s because it’s a fair way oop north, which the town hall elections a week or so back confirmed is more and more Nigel Farage’s fiefdom these days.
Part of the constituency is in Wigan, where Reform won almost all the seats that were up for grabs. And where even at the general election Labour only beat them by just over five thousand votes anyway.
Then again, if Burnham’s bid crash-lands at that point there’s always the former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner also gagging for Starmer’s job.
She had to step down because of questions raised about her tax affairs. But now, with impeccable timing, the matter’s been sorted. Meaning she too could get her running spikes on.
If so, same as Burnham, she’d be streaks ahead of Streeting, because she’s also on the left of the party.
They’re frightfully democratic, those Labour folk, giving each ordinary member as much clout as any MP.
Could be argued, mind, that that arrangement doesn’t in the end serve democracy very well at all. For the simple reason that the party grassroots’ instincts are a fair bit out of kilter with those of the electorate at large.
MPs by contrast do have to take the punters’ feelings seriously, as they need their backing to get elected in the first place.
But now with so many voters clearly showing a preference for Nigel Farage, to a point that the keys to Number Ten just could be within reach, he’s under the media cosh as never before.
His lot did get a bit of a boost in the polls after their overwhelming triumph in the local elections. But that could yet screech into reverse as the questions mount up about what he’s really like.
Bear in mind that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, that’s the bloke charged with making sure MPs behave themselves, is checking out the five million smackers given to Farage before the general election.
He insists he needed it for his personal protection. And he didn’t have to declare it anyway. But, as it came from a crypto billionaire and he has rather batted for this sort of currency, eyebrows remain raised.
It could even turn into a scandal that’d see him having to step down and fight for his own seat. Hardly a brilliant look.
And that’s on top of the masses of murky stuff already surfacing about a fair few of his newly elected councillors.
One’s been suspended for suggesting Nigerians should be melted down and used to fill potholes. And a second’s resigned after allegedly celebrating on social media the rape of a Sikh woman.
There are also claims that he described the Holocaust as a hoax, praised the Nazis as ‘real visionaries’ and described white people as ‘the master race’ because they had ‘larger brains’.
Worth noting though that since the Greens also did pretty well in those local elections they too have been getting lots more stick from the scribblers. Notably regarding claims about alleged antisemitic comments.
Indeed, one of their councillors was actually arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred online, though he denies the charge.
But, far more prominently, the party leader Zack Polanski has also had some explaining to do about council tax that he might have failed to pay while living on a London houseboat.
All an unfortunate mistake and anything owed will be paid straight away, his side soothingly murmurs. Still, it’s not a million miles from the territory that so spectacularly tripped up Angela Rayner.
Certainly has been a funny old week in Westminster, with all the shenanigans placing it in a parallel universe from everyone else.
Strikingly, there’s been barely a peep about something that in normal times would have dominated headlines for days. The King’s Speech, in which the government sets out its plans for the months and years ahead.
Never mind all the centuries-old pomp, ceremony, men in tights and banging on doors, there was the small matter of thirty-seven new laws lined up for the nation. Some pretty controversial.
There’s the closer ties with the European Union for a start, which many Labour supporters say go nothing like far enough, while at the same time the Tories squeal are a betrayal of Brexit.
Then there’s a significantly harder line regarding the right of asylum seekers to remain in UK on a long-term basis. And, feeding into the mix, a huge cutback on defendants’ right to trial by jury.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s no mention of the government stepping in to give MPs another crack at the Assisted Dying Bill which they were determined to put into law until it got squashed by unelected peers.
Crazy stuff on all fronts, maybe time they took a chill pill. Which, gloriously engagingly, comes to hospital patients in Southern California via therapy mini horses.
Included in their list of tricks is standing on their hind legs, giving high-fives and kicking small balls. But the most totally brilliant thing they do is play a thirty-two-key piano.
‘Wherever you go you’re bringing joy,’ says Victoria Noddiff-Netanel, the lady who trained and who clearly adores them.
OK, running their dear little muzzles up and down the keyboard doesn’t exactly make for melody in the conventional sense, but it sure is a lot of fun.
Also a lot more coherent as well as nicer to listen to than much of the racket coming out of Westminster lately.
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
Peter Spencer has 40 years experience as a Political Correspondent in Westminster, working with London Broadcasting and Sky News. For more of his fascinating musings on the turbulent political landscape, follow him on Facebook & Twitter.