Keir Starmer came to PMQs wearing that look of post-resignation relief that we’ve grown all too used to seeing on a prime minister’s face over the past decade. He had to deal with a particularly brutal Kemi Badenoch today, though the full force of the Leader of the Opposition’s attacks was largely directed at Starmer’s cabinet, rather than him.
Reeves appeared close to tears as Starmer replied with a full tribute to her
Badenoch first congratulated the Prime Minister on his party’s by-election win, but then added jokingly that she suspected he would be less happy with his new MP than she was with hers. She also reminded the Chamber that ‘two weeks ago, the Prime Minister told the House that the government was funding defence, and everything was under control’ but that ‘the very next day, the defence secretary resigned, saying the Prime Minister was unable and the Treasury unwilling to fund the defence of our country – what changed?’
‘She lives next door to him, but wouldn’t even come out to stand by him during his resignation speech. She was too busy getting ready for a selfie with the new leader.’
— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 24, 2026
Kemi Badenoch grills Keir Starmer on whether he feels let down by his Chancellor Rachel Reeves. pic.twitter.com/dgvVRHFwRw
Starmer replied that he was ‘very pleased with our new member of parliament’, to laughter from around the House. He then joked that on the progress the Tories had made in Makerfield, it would take them 500 years to get back into power. He argued that Labour had in fact ‘delivered the biggest sustained boost to defence spending since the 1980s’, and would ‘finalise the plan with the Defence Secretary and have it published before the Nato summit’.
Whether or not this turns out to be the case is largely irrelevant, given the next prime minister could rip up even a published plan, but it is still significant that Starmer thinks the DIP (defence investment plan) should be part of his legacy, rather than something he hands over to Andy Burnham.
The Tory leader then turned her fire on Rachel Reeves, blaming her for the mess over the DIP and asking whether the Prime Minister felt ‘let down by his Chancellor’.
Reeves appeared close to tears as Starmer replied with a full tribute to her. He told the Chamber that Britain had been better able to weather the storms because of Reeves – including the war that Badenoch had ‘wanted to jump into’ – a phrase that has long sounded tired.
Badenoch jokingly pointed out that Labour MPs were cheering, and asked ‘if it’s all going so well, why is he resigning?’
She carried on attacking Reeves, pointing out that she had been the one to cut the winter fuel payment, and that Starmer was leaving office with unemployment higher than when he came in.
The Chancellor wasn’t the only person who had let him down, she said: ‘The Energy Secretary is putting up bills and killing jobs – he’s not here is he? He was a failed Labour leader, rejected by the electorate, brought back from the wilderness by this man, and when the going got tough, he jumped into bed with the Mayor of Manchester. It’s not the first time he’s betrayed someone close to him, is it? Does the Prime Minister think that this treachery should be rewarded by being appointed Chancellor?’
Starmer replied that he and the Chancellor had ‘picked up our party’, had turned it around ‘and we made it face the country’. It was a good line. He continued to pay tribute to Reeves, then said: ‘The test for every Prime Minister is handing over the country in better shape than you found it. I know I can do that, which is more than can be said for her predecessor, her predecessor’s predecessor and her predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor!’
Before Starmer could reply, the Speaker intervened to make a reasonable point about the language Badenoch was using
This was when Badenoch started to get really personal. She said Starmer was being generous ‘to stick by his ministers, because they didn’t stick by him’. She added: ‘To be fair, they’re not all traitors and deserters. Some of his cabinet have been loyal. Loyal and incompetent. Hands up if you think the Education Secretary is doing a good job?’
As Bridget Phillipson and the majority of her comrades refused to move their arms at all, Badenoch revelled in pointing out that only a couple of Labour MPs had raised their hands. ‘Even she doesn’t think she’s doing a good job!’ Badenoch then called Phillipson a ‘spiteful class warrior’ and said her appointment was a mistake. ‘Does the Prime Minister agree that he has been let down by her incompetence?’
Starmer’s reply was forceful and quite protective of Phillipson. He argued that she had been reluctant to tell her own ‘incredible story’ of growing up in poverty and that he was proud she was sitting there. Badenoch kept going, arguing that if Phillipson knew so much about poor children, she wouldn’t have given them fewer teachers. She then asked if Starmer felt ‘betrayed by the people he got into parliament’, referring to his MPs, who she said had ‘400 knives’ in his back.
But before the Prime Minister could reply, the Speaker intervened to make a reasonable point about the language Badenoch was using. ‘Let us think about the language we are using…because when we leave this Chamber, don’t be surprised when constituents feel they can use the same language’.
This wasn’t Hoyle being overly prim: he is better aware than most of the threats against MPs, and the way in which public sentiment towards politicians has become more and more poisoned over the past decade.
While there is nothing wrong with using fruity language (in fact, there’s often quite a lot right with it), words like ‘traitor’ and references to knives in the Prime Minister’s back really are so potent that they don’t have a place in the Commons. Afterwards, though, her spokesman said she would ‘absolutely’ not apologise for her language.
The session showed that Starmer wants to leave with as much good grace as possible, even though he may privately feel deeply betrayed. His defence of his colleagues was classy. But as the attention shifts away from him, today’s session was more interesting for what it told us about Badenoch, who is clearly feeling more of a winner than before. But some of her MPs may well be unsettled by the way she conducted this session.
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