AT his first Prime Minister’s Questions, the expectation would be for Oliver Dowden to be fully briefed on all matters political.
However, an attempted attack on the SNP fell flat as the Deputy Prime Minister showed he isn’t too up to date on how long the party have actually been governing in Scotland.
Trying to move on quickly from a shoddy defence of Brexit, he thundered at the SNP’s deputy Westminster leader Mhairi Black: “I see last week the SNP promised to build a new Scotland.
“I don’t know whether she is aware but the SNP have been in power for 13 years.”
His assertion left SNP’s MPs laughing and pointing upwards to indicate – as Black and indeed everyone else is aware – that in fact it’s been 16 years since the first SNP government.
Of course it’s the Tories not the SNP which have been in power for 13 years, which leaves The Jouker to ponder whether it was actually a Freudian slip by Dowden as he was thinking about the state of his own party.
Sitting by his side, Scottish Secretary Alister Jack looked slightly baffled but failed to give him a nudge to correct the error.
Instead it was left to one colleague to later praise Dowden for his “brilliant first performance” at PMQs, who had stepped into Rishi Sunak’s shoes for the first time while the Prime Minister attends the G7 summit in Japan.
Step forward Matt Hancock, the former health secretary who is now best known for abandoning his constituents to eat kangaroo testicles in the jungle on reality TV.
