IF anything illustrated how Theresa May’s fragile Government is now living on its nerves, it was the swift Commons move to allow women from Northern Ireland to have free abortions on the NHS in England.
The amendment by Labour’s Stella Creasy threatened a defeat for the Prime Minister on her Queen’s Speech. Not good.
Given it had been seconded by Tory Peter Bottomley and supported by a number of Conservative backbenchers, the penny dropped very quickly. Andrea Leadsom, the Commons leader, pointed out to MPs how Government departments were urgently examining the issue.
Within two hours, the issue, having been duly examined, was agreed to. Chancellor Philip Hammond made the announcement and the victorious Ms Creasy withdrew her amendment.
Given the strict restrictions in Northern Ireland on abortion and the view by the Prime Minister’s new best friends, the Democratic Unionists, that they should not be loosened in any way, one might have thought they would have looked askance at their fellow Unionists’ easy compliance.
But as the North Antrim MP Ian Paisley had previously noted, paying women in Ulster to have abortions on the British mainland was not a matter for Stormont but the NHS in England.
With a £1 billion in Northern Ireland’s back pocket, it seems even the DUP can be persuaded at times to look the other way.
Such, let’s say, pragmatism will be needed in bucket-loads as the minority Tory government seeks to prolong its life courtesy of Ulster generosity.
But tensions will abound as we have seen in the last few days with splits, which would in normal times remain private, spilling out in public.
Having been on the verge of the precipice before the election, Mr Hammond has swapped places with Mrs May, who now teeters on the brink every day.
Emboldened, the Remain Chancellor took a pop at the cake-munching Leave foreign secretary.
Lampooning Boris Johnson in Berlin, Mr Hammond said the question was not whether to have your cake and eat it or even who had the largest slice but to “be smart enough to work out how to continue collaborating together[with the EU] to keep the cake expanding for the benefit of all”.
Not to be left out, David Davis, the Brexit secretary, had a pop at the Chancellor over his contention about transitional arrangements once Britain had left the EU.
Mr Hammond, Mr Davis noted, had said “a number of things that are not quite consistent with each other”. He insisted Britain would be able to strike trade deals the day after Brexit had happened in March 2019; in other words, no transitional deal on the customs union.
After a hokey-kokey on whether to “scrap the cap” on public sector pay, which saw Mr Hammond blow his top at his Downing Street neighbour, even the urbane David Mundell appeared on the radar of Whitehall disgruntlement.
The £1bn DUP deal was outwith the normal Barnett Formula process yet the Scottish secretary still appeared concerned about fiscal contamination. Had he raised his worries with the PM?
A source close to the minister insisted: “We’re not getting into a blow-by-blow account of what was said inside Cabinet.” Which seemed to confirm that he had.
As events unfold and tension builds upon tension, voters will be pleased to know that the soap opera that is a minority government has still not left Act 1 Scene 1. Drama is guaranteed.
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