Sketch: Lara Bird has pride of plaice

Newly minted SNP MP Lara Bird is really making a name for herself. First there was all the furore over her accent. And now she’s claiming the “best fish and chips” can be found in her constituency of Arbroath and Broughty Ferry.

It’s certainly a bold thing to say in one of her first debates at Westminster. But after she got battered for having two accents, she’s clearly haddock enough with being gracious. And thank cod for that. It made what could have bream an exceedingly dull debate on support for the fishing sector a little less lacklobster. 

Arbroath is a “deeply proud fish and chip community”, Bird tells the handful of colleagues in the room. But sadly, that pride has been a little dented because the weekly fish supper isn’t locally sourced anymore. The town is “still really feeling today” – still reeling, one might say – from the fall of its fishing sector. What was one of Scotland’s “busiest fishing ports” faced a “steep decline” from 1970 onwards, she says. So much so that the famed Arbroath Smokie is, wait for it, now made using fish caught in Peterhead. Is that false advertising?

It was after she made these sad noises about a sector in decline that she made her attention-grabbing claim. “I am proud that Arbroath has what I believe to be the best fish and chips in Scotland and therefore the world,” she announces. That’s right, not just in the Scotland, not just the UK, but the entire world.

But, she admits, keeping this title is becoming “very challenging” because of the aforementioned decline. She’s had “so many” emails and letters about it, even in the couple of weeks since she was elected, with constituents “at a loss” and “so concerned” about their fish and chip reputation.

Practically tearing up, she says that “folks come from all over to experience” Arbroath’s taste sensation. But what if they found out that, like the Smokies, this fish was not local at all? “Many of the fish shops in my constituency are turning to frozen-at-sea fish,” she wails in discontent.

Well, now she’s really let the cat out of the bag. Who will head to the town’s chippies now their MP has told everyone this dirty little secret?

Her SNP colleague Seamus Logan, whose Aberdeenshire North and Moray East constituency does in fact include Peterhead, from whence the haddock for Arbroath Smokies comes, senses an opening. He makes his move. 

“I do want to take issue with one part of the excellent contribution from the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, when she claimed to have the best fish and chip shop in the world,” he says smoothly. “Many people in this place and the main chamber will have laid claim to that title, but I can assure her there are many fish and chip shops in my constituency that believe they have that title.” It’s a gentle challenge. A little parry. He doesn’t quite go for the jugular and claim that his constituency is definitely home to the world’s best fish and chips. But he’s putting her on notice. The internal disputes within the SNP rumble on for another day.

But where the pair can find agreement, naturally, is on the cause of the problems: the UK Government. Bird blames Labour ministers for putting a “tax on jobs” and for not tackling high fuel prices. Logan, meanwhile, is vexed about money. 

He goes on to brandish six pages of almost entirely redacted correspondence relating to negotiations on fish cash, for which he is dutifully told off by chair Alec Shelbrooke, who reminds Logan he “may describe the aid and prop but please do not hold it up”. 

“I have six pages of almost entirely redacted correspondence,” Logan replies. And he’s got a message for PM-in-waiting Andy Burnham. If he really does want to put “hope in every heart”, Logan says, he’ll make fish a priority. 

The DUP’s Jim Shannon agrees, warning that “without fishing, these communities lose their sole”. No, sorry, that’s wrong. “These communities lose their soul”, he says.

So Burnham should force Brits to eat a lot of fish to bring hope to their hearts and retain their souls. Though the jury is still out on whether Burnham sold his own soul to get to Downing Street.

Fortunately for him, he’s not the one on the hook to respond to this debate. That honour falls to Stephen Morgan, who manages to make a speech without saying much of anything. Probably because who knows what the UK Government’s position will be in a few weeks’ time. 

The only declaration he makes is that scampi is his “dish of choice on a Friday”, having been invited by Shannon to his constituency for “all the best scampi in the world”. A-ha! A new challenger emerges! There has been no greater battle over the water since that time Nigel Farage and Bob Geldof clashed on the Thames. What a time to be alive.