Over the recess, Phillipson agreed to do a fashion shoot for a rival newspaper in which she looked about as comfortable as a mannequin nursing a hernia – why are women MPs forced to do these things?
But she’s clearly undergone the media training that Keegan so desperately needs. This girl was on fire. “What an utter shambles,” she said: “The defining image of 13 years of Conservative government [will be] children cowering under steel props to stop the ceiling falling in over their heads!”
One has to laugh. The state of the buildings has only come to light because the Government raised standards and chose to be cautious: it is paying the price for diligence. Yes, a roof collapsed in 2018, which is troubling, but no kids were present. Yet Phillipson’s statement conjured images of The Towering Inferno, with Steve McQueen rescuing Form 2b from a burning lift.
Ben Bradshaw suggested the Cabinet doesn’t care about state schools because they don’t send their own children to them, which was tasteless.
Diana Johnson at least had a practical suggestion to make: Could the education department plug any gaps in its budget by introducing a swear box? “Thank you for the joke,” replied Keegan, “but as a scouser, I have a higher bar.”
“I know the details of this in great detail,” she reassured us and proved it with a calm and fact-heavy presentation that restored confidence at least among her own MPs. What a pity, then, that she didn’t do this at a press conference over the weekend, getting ahead of the story rather than allowing it to be spun into “heartless Tories teach kids in condemned fire pits”.
Steve Tuckwell, the new Conservative MP, looked bored by the whole debate. Mather didn’t attend. Home in time to watch Neighbours, I presume.