Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt (Picture: Hollie Adams/Getty Images)
‘Tea room plots.’ If there’s a single phrase that screams ‘Westminster Bubble’ more than that one, I’ve yet to hear it in my 14 years in parliament.
The term, which refers to the MP’s tea room and the gossiping among members that takes place there, is back in vogue amid rumours that members of my party are seeking to replace Rishi Sunak in a labyrinthine scheme that apparently involves Penny Mordaunt as a sword-swinging stalking horse.
These rumours may be accurate, or not, but my question remains – is there any hope that the tea room plotters, whether real or imaginary, will put up or shut up?
Ever since Jeffrey Archer wrote First Among Equals, and Michael Dobbs wrote House of Cards, there has been a persistent myth that Parliament is some sort of hotbed of intrigue, of Machiavellian plots and rumoured coups by shadowy figures.
It was actually my former colleague the great Paul Masterton who coined the phrase, ‘you think they are all going to be like Francis Urquhart when in fact they are much more like Regina George’. The latter cultural reference is usually quite lost on my colleagues.
But ‘Mean Girls’ is about as accurate a description of the current state of Westminster, not least this week, where Penny Mordaunt is being cast as the sword wielder, and you can’t deny that, after what we’ve seen at the Coronation, she does have form.
Rachel McAdams as Regina George in Mean Girls 2004 (Picture: CBS via Getty Images)
But she is no Brutus, even if she is certainly being portrayed as that by some sections of the media after excitable briefing from MPs.
Amid fevered speculation, I also note a counter rumour that it is actually Tom Tugendhat who is the preferred King Slayer, and it is reported there are an even dozen colleagues in that circle.
12?
Effectively a lacrosse team rather than a Cabinet in waiting.
Although if you were going to pick a sport that would be about the most brutal, and to be included in the Olympics in 2028, you could do worse than lacrosse, not least because it is also, ironically, the favoured athletic pursuit of one Regina George.
It really is Mean Girls here.
Maybe political plotting could also be a contender for Olympic sport status, apparently you only need a really small team to be regarded as credible, and it seems to have a fair old knack of attracting column inches.
Perhaps we could go so far as to have broadcast the tea room discussions live on TV, and have our shirts sponsored by bookmakers.
I’m joking of course, but there’s a serious point – do my colleagues really think toppling Rishi Sunak at this stage of the Parliament is a good idea?
There are rumours that members of my party are seeking to replace Rishi Sunak (Picture: Nick Edwards)
There is precious little talk of regicide in the corridors, the lobbies and the library, although Sir Graham Brady, he who keeps note of the letters of no confidence, trotting in to see the Prime Ministers last week did cause a frisson of agitation.
In fact the only letters being discussed, far from being ones of confidence, are about targeted leaflets to voters ahead of the election.
So Penny Mordaunt, who is making a point of getting on with her job, becomes the fall guy, accused of being on manoeuvres. Well I suppose I did see her walking down the corridor today, so she is definitely manoeuvring, or maybe just moving.
That’s how quickly things can get twisted in tea room plots.
And that’s before you even begin to consider the weird conspiracies, that Penny thinks she will lose her Portsmouth seat so she sees the final six months of this Parliament as her last chance to occupy Number 10.
Give me a break. Who in their right mind wants to be Prime Minister for six months?
Absolutely nobody.
Personally I don’t actually think anyone in their right mind would want to take the job at all.
And if there is one thing I can tell you about Penny Mordaunt, it is that she is as sane as they come. She works damn hard as the MP for Portsmouth North, and does a very fine job as Leader of the House.
The SNP may not much like the weekly social media clips she shares at their expense, and her opposite number Lucy Powell may have looked distinctly uncomfortable at her evisceration of the Labour Party last week, but fundamentally it is only the jealous who have anything mean to say about her.
Any plotting is coming from the jealous – those whose green envy blends with the Commons benches.
That’s if there even is a plot – the plotters are allegedly briefing journalists that there is one, but tea room chatter and the real world aren’t the same.
That’s why those of us on the ground, no matter our leanings on the performance of the Prime Minister, have no evidence of anything that looks like a competent or orchestrated bid to topple him.
So it probably is just a bunch of unruly schoolchildren who think they are being awfully clever, but in fact are working really hard at delivering their own electoral future into the hands of their political opponents.
Regina George herself would be ashamed.
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