A black swan event: Keir actually cracked a good joke at PMQs | John Crace
Whisper it softly, but Keir Starmer made a joke.A good one at that.MPs from most corners of the Commons even laughed.Genuine laughter.Not the contrived partisan guffaws you usually get at prime minister’s questions that makes the public howl in despair.
OK, we can take issue with the delivery,Starmer has next to no grasp of comic timing,Any gag takes its life in its own hands when Keir is around,Most are dead on arrival,But let’s not be too picky.
It was still a black swan event.A genuine rarity.He can’t help not having much of a sense of humour.That’s the luck of the draw at birth.Keir is naturally disposed to be dull.
To be literal,To take things at face value,And let’s be thankful for that,We had more than enough of comedians running the show under the Tories to last a lifetime,Take a bow, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
So yes, the gag could have worked even better.Possibly even brought proceedings to a standstill for a couple of minutes.But it was still a landmark moment.Not just for Starmer, but for PMQs.The Commons is a notorious graveyard for wannabe comedians.
A place where bad gags come to die,Where MPs discover they aren’t quite as sharp and witty as they imagine themselves to be,The funniest moments in the chamber are almost invariably unintentional,Not least when members start to take themselves desperately seriously,Let’s hear it for the joke, then.
It came near the start during Starmer’s opening monologue.Having addressed the serious stuff of antisemitism, Keir wished everyone a happy Christmas in his last Commons appearance of the year.And in the spirit of goodwill to all men – and all women – he had this advice to Reform: “If mysterious men appear from the east bearing gifts, this time report it to the police.”Weirdly, the only person who didn’t seem to find this funny was Nigel Farage.Perhaps he still can’t quite see what the problem is with taking bribes from the Russians – believes that Nathan Gill has been hard done by.
Instead, Nige looked stony-faced as he sat in his new, favourite place in the Commons,The gallery that runs the length of the chamber above the government benches,AKA the Special Gallery,We wondered at first if this was all some elaborate setup,That Nige had only taken up residence there so that Reform MPs could shout “He’s behind you!” when a dopey Labour backbencher observed that Farage was nowhere to be seen.
But that would have been one hell of a lot of trouble for a one bite, pantomime laugh.So the most likely reason for Nige’s non-appearance in the chamber is that he is having a monumental sulk.He just can’t bring himself to accept that the Commons rules only allow him a single question once every six weeks or so.He takes it as an affront to his narcissism.If Nige had his way, he would take centre stage every week.
MPs of his own and other parties only exist as satellites orbiting his ego.When he dies, the world dies with him.What makes this even worse for him is that literally no one else cares if Nige is having a strop.The one thing the Reform leader can’t bear is to be ignored.Buoyed by the unexpected success of his three wise men gag, Keir chose to double down on Reform.
Noticing that Sarah Pochin had made a rare appearance in the Commons, he said he hoped she got the white Christmas she desired so dearly.Poor Sarah! It’s not her fault that she can’t help projectile vomiting every time she sees a brown or black face in an advert.I doubt we’ll be seeing Sarah again any time soon.She can’t take too much of this.Too many black and brown faces on the Labour benches.
There was also just time for Starmer to fire one last arrow at Nigel.Christmas was a time of forgiveness, he said.So, following on from the letter published by the Guardian on Wednesday, perhaps Nige would like to make an apology to the former Dulwich boys he allegedly racially abused.Judging by his expression, saying sorry was the last thing on his mind.If Nige had been in a bad mood before, he was furious now.
Any apology would be the thin end of the wedge,Après moi, le déluge,There was no way of knowing where all this could end,Deny, deny, deny,It was old news.
Here was the Commons condemning an attack on Jews at Bondi, while the Reform leader had been accused of once having said: “Hitler was right.”As for the rest of PMQs, it was pretty much a non-event.Starmer and Kemi Badenoch trading bad Christmas cracker puns to no great effect.As though neither really had their heart in it.Kemi would be the most likely one to be offered a job in panto, with her third-rate innuendo that invariably telegraphs the punchline minutes in advance, but this wasn’t a show anyone would pay good money to see.
Rather it was a bloodless endurance contest,Kemi tried to go in on Starmer’s remarks to the liaison committee on Monday about the levers of government not working as they should – almost an admission the government was in effect ungovernable – but this wasn’t the best day for this as Keir had just had a big win on the Erasmus scheme,The Tory leader ignored this,She can no longer quite work out whether she is pro- or anti-Brexit,Though she does have a kneejerk aversion to young people working inside the EU.
Fraternising with the enemy.It was left to Starmer to have the final word.He had picked up on an interview the shadow transport secretary, Richard Holden, had given in which he had dismissed most of the shadow cabinet as a bunch of nonentities.This could just be the first time Rich has inadvertently been right about anything, but it hasn’t gone down well with many of his colleagues.I guess it takes a nonentity to know a nonentity.
His therapist will have their work cut out to nail down if this was a moment of denial or self-acceptance,Maybe it was just a cry for help and he could do with a break,As do we all,The Bonfire of the Insanities by John Crace (Guardian Faber Publishing, £16,99).
To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com.Delivery charges may apply.
Amazon in talks to invest $10bn in developer of ChatGPT
Amazon is in talks to invest more than $10bn (£7.5bn) in OpenAI, in the latest funding deal being struck by the startup behind ChatGPT.If it goes ahead, the market valuation of OpenAI could rise above $500bn, according to The Information, a tech news site that revealed the negotiations.Amazon, which is best known as an online retailer, is also the world’s largest datacentre provider and its investment would help OpenAI pay for its commitments to rent capacity from cloud computing companies – including Amazon.OpenAI said last month it would spend $38bn on capacity from Amazon Web Services – the company’s datacentre arm – over seven years
UK insists US tech deal not dead as Trump threatens penalties against European firms
Downing Street insists the $40bn Tech Prosperity Deal between the US and UK that is on hold is not permanently stalled. The BBC reported on Tuesday evening that the prime minister’s office claimed that the UK remains in “active conversations with US counterparts at all levels of government” about the wide-ranging deal for the technology industries in both countries to cooperate.The agreement, previously billed as historic, was paused after the US accused the UK of failing to lower trade barriers, including a digital services tax on US tech companies and food safety rules that limit the export of some agricultural products. The New York Times first reported British confirmation that negotiations had stalled.“We look forward to resuming work on this partnership as quickly as possible,” a Downing Street spokesperson said in a statement
US date rape survivors file lawsuit accusing Hinge and Tinder of ‘accommodating rapists’
The Dating Apps Reporting Project produced this story in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network and The Markup, now a part of CalMatters, and copublished with The Guardian and The 19th.Six women who were drugged and raped or sexually assaulted by the same Denver cardiologist filed a lawsuit against Match Group on Tuesday, accusing the world’s largest dating app company of “accommodating rapists across its products” through “negligence” and a “defective” product.The women, backed by four law firms, said that by allowing known abusers like Stephen Matthews to remain on its apps, Tinder and Hinge, even after they are reported for rape, the company fostered a breeding ground for “sexual predators”.“Even when Match Group receives reports about rapists, they continue to welcome them, fail to warn users about the general and specific risks, and affirmatively recommend known predators to members,” the complaint said. “Rapists know each Match Group platform offers a catalog of available victims
Water levels across the Great Lakes are falling – just as US data centers move in
The sign outside Tom Hermes’s farmyard in Perkins Township in Ohio, a short drive south of the shores of Lake Erie, proudly claims that his family have farmed the land here since 1900. Today, he raises 130 head of cattle and grows corn, wheat, grass and soybeans on 1,200 acres of land.For his family, his animals and wider business, water is life.So when, in May 2024, the Texas-based Aligned Data Centers broke ground on its NEO-01, four-building, 200,000 sq ft data center on a brownfield site that abuts farmland that Hermes rents, he was concerned.“We have city water here
Boost for artists in AI copyright battle as only 3% back UK active opt-out plan
A campaign fronted by popstars including Elton John and Dua Lipa to protect artists’ works from being mined to train AI models without consent has received a boost after almost every respondent to a government consultation backed their case.Ninety-five per cent of the more than 10,000 people who had their say over how music, novels, films and other works should be protected from copyright infringements by tech companies called for copyright to be strengthened and a requirement for licensing in all cases or no change to copyright law.By contrast, only 3% of people backed the government’s initial preferred tech company-friendly option, which was to require artists and copyright holders to actively opt out of having their material fed into data-hungry AI systems.Ministers subsequently dropped that preference in the face of a backlash. Artists who have opposed any dilution of their copyright include Sam Fender, Kate Bush and the Pet Shop Boys
Google AI summaries are ruining the livelihoods of recipe writers: ‘It’s an extinction event’
This past March, when Google began rolling out its AI Mode search capability, it began offering AI-generated recipes. The recipes were not all that intelligent. The AI had taken elements of similar recipes from multiple creators and Frankensteined them into something barely recognizable. In one memorable case, the Google AI failed to distinguish comments on a Reddit thread from legitimate recipe sites and advised users to cook with non-toxic glue.Over the past few years, bloggers who have not secured their sites behind a paywall have seen their carefully developed and tested recipes show up, often without attribution and in a bastardized form, in ChatGPT replies
‘Permanent winter’: a day in the life of a hospital dealing with flu and strikes
Some of England’s most-deprived councils to get funding boost in new deal
Rights group challenges trans-inclusive swimming policy at Hampstead Heath
Will resident doctors lose support over latest strike? | Letters
When ‘How are you?’ becomes a painful question to answer | Letter
Study finds 10% of over-70s in UK could have Alzheimer’s-like changes in brain