Imagine, if you can, a stick of celery jammed between a cauliflower and a baking potato and you are imagining Labour’s front bench.
That is not, of course, an accurate description since there are far more vegetables involved.
But the intention is to paint a picture in words for you to visualise some of the key players in the People’s Party at Prime Ministers Questions today.
It was meant to be memorable since it marked the return to the Commons chamber of the party’s leader since the latest failed attempt to de-throne him.
Jeremy Corbyn arrived to noise on the Labour back benches. Not applause perhaps, but a big improvement on the silence his first year brought him.
Jeremy, it should be reported immediately, did ok, not brilliant, but ok, which many might think brilliant anyway. But back to the vegetables.
On his front bench new faces, or new old faces like Nick Brown, enforcer during the Gordon reign, now disinterred to do the same job again.
Nick is beefy, as befits his job and now takes up space at one end of Labour’s front bench – which brings us to the vegetables.
PMQs today was preceded by Scottish questions which is where the Tories put up their single representative north of the border.
The sensible ones then leave the chamber before the SNP are let in for a pre-PMQs snack.
Labour also have to be present, a problem for Jeremy when almost all his MPs walked out.
To fill the gap he promoted Dave Anderson as shadow SoS for Scotland – and Northern Ireland – but that’s another story.
Dave qualified because he was MP for Blaydon on Tyneside, the closest place of Labour influence to the Scottish border.
Dave also qualified because, as a geordie, he had the language skills necessary to talk to the Scots without sub-titles.
Anyway his promotion meant he was stiil around when Jeremy made his entrance and Dave ain’t no shrinking violet.
He can be perfectly described as every stone a heavyweight on the political scene.
On Jeremy’s other side, the immovable object that is his deputy Tom Watson, another who listened to his mother’s call to fill up on the bread.
When Jeremy stood up it was as if he were a pea fired out of a pod.
(This may be a mixed vegetable too far – sorry)
As it was he continued last week’s break with tradition by asking questions of relevance.
But the effort of linking them up was obviously too much two weeks in a row.
Theresa May wriggled but her own vegetables just stared into space, a dangerous place since the new Nick had brought his old death stare with him.
Emily Thornberry, the interesting appointment as shadow Foreign Secretary kept up the chorus of ‘yeps’ which now encompasses her Commons appearances.
Emily may well be an early contender for ‘most annoying MP’, the title formerly held by Ed Balls.
Diane Abbott is obviously considering a late bid.
Labour is just 17% behind the Tories in the latest opinion poll.
“” flickr photo by Khuroshvili Ilya https://flickr.com/photos/nvbr11/13142303363 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license
