The final Prime Minister’s Questions of a parliamentary session is often quite a demob-happy affair with a pantomime atmosphere. Today’s, though, was more important for Keir Starmer, who is now in a daily battle to show that he’s still got enough support to keep going a bit longer. He didn’t have a bad session, but as with many of the events in the Commons this week, it won’t make much difference to his longevity.
Badenoch’s opener drew a contrast between the start of the parliamentary session, when ‘sycophantic’ Labour MPs had asked Starmer supportive questions, and this week, when the ‘Prime Minister was reduced to begging those same MPs to save his own skin’. She told the Chamber that he had broken his promise to grow the economy and that the only thing that had grown was the welfare bill.
How many more people were out of work and claiming benefits since he took office, she asked. Starmer sprang up to list the things his government had done around employment and then widened it out to increasing police numbers and energy bills, praising the ministers responsible rather pointedly as well. It was almost as though he was still on a charm offensive to persuade colleagues to support him.
The Tory leader accused Starmer and Reeves of not being ‘serious’ about the economy
Starmer had not, though, answered the question, and Badenoch wasted no time in pointing this out. She said he ‘doesn’t want to say how many people, how many more people, in fact, are out of work and claiming universal credit since he took office’. Perhaps he didn’t know, she joked, supplying the figures herself: 1.5 million. ‘We are now spending more on welfare than we earn in income tax,’ she added.
The Prime Minister pointed out that the ‘welfare system she complains of is the one that they put in place’. He then claimed that Labour is reforming welfare – which is strictly true only in the sense that it is making a few changes around the edges rather than anything that could come close to being described as ‘wholesale’, and said the Tories had voted against Labour’s reforms. What he didn’t mention was that Labour had junked the bulk of those reforms at the last minute to avoid a revolt from its own backbenchers.
Badenoch joked that ‘that answer was as honest as his reasons for sacking Olly Robbins – perhaps he’d like to apologise for that right now’. She said the reason the government was spending more on welfare was ‘because of him and his terrible policies’. This was a typically Badenoch blunt turn of phrase. She then quoted – for a second week – George Robertson on defence spending and welfare and asked Starmer why he didn’t agree. He claimed in response that Labour was spending more on defence.
The Tory leader then accused Starmer and Rachel Reeves of not being ‘serious’ about the economy, pointing to the Chancellor floating a rent freeze this week as a sign that the pair are more interested in currying favour with the left of their party than they are about governing. ‘It is time the Prime Minister gives her an easier job,’ she said, asking him to reshuffle Reeves.
Starmer praised Reeves in response, but notably didn’t make any comment to the effect that she wouldn’t be moved. Instead, he attacked Badenoch. Fortunately, Reeves seemed to be in a better mood today and didn’t end up crying at this lack of support. Badenoch happily pointed out the omission anyway, saying ‘it sounds like she’s toast!’
She described Labour MPs as looking ‘guilty as hell’ about which one of them had said, anonymously, that Starmer’s days were numbered. The Prime Minister then went on the offensive over yesterday’s failed attempt to refer him to a privileges committee investigation, saying the House had ‘decisively’ rejected the ‘desperate, baseless political stunt ahead of the May elections’.
Starmer said he had been chairing a COBRA meeting while the Conservatives were playing political games. It was his regular lecture to Badenoch about how real politicians should conduct themselves, and this time, she bit back, saying: ‘I think the whole country is sick of this man’s tone deaf, pompous moralising.’ She said he was ‘not a man who is in control’ because ‘we all saw him punch the Speaker’s chair last week’.
Badenoch listed his mistakes and failed policies, and asked ‘how much longer do we have to put up with his shambles?’ Starmer replied that he had changed his party and won an election, but Badenoch had changed her party by making it smaller because MPs kept leaving for Reform. The problem is that he can still only really point to what he achieved in opposition, rather than anything between then and now.
Still, at least Starmer achieved the impressive feat of summoning a small platoon of Labour MPs still sufficiently loyal to him that they were happy to ask totally humiliating questions about how great he is and how much Labour is achieving in government. Like the standing ovations for Iain Duncan Smith just before he was ejected from his party’s leadership, those questions will not be enough to save him.
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