Has Sir Keir Starmer already checked out? There was a strange atmosphere in the House of Commons today. A sort of calm in the eye of the storm pervaded. The Prime Minister seemed more relaxed than he’d been for ages, perhaps finally resigned to, well, resigning.
There are asthmatic sloths which could produce more fulsome cheers than Labour managed in the Commons
Maybe he’s preparing himself for his future; as an avuncular guest on The Rest is Politics or on Arsenal fan podcasts? I can see it now, a more relaxed Starmer in an open necked shirt, jokes about being a Gooner, Mandelson forgotten. This is Centrist Dad Valhalla and Keir is at rest. I mean if Alastair Campbell can achieve it, broadcasting from his massive house as opposed to the cell in The Hague where he belongs then why shouldn’t Starmer? We know that shame is not a feeling that sits within his emotional range.
Kemi Badenoch made a good attempt at trying to rile him, specifically on energy policy. As the hardcore derangement of putting Ed Miliband in charge of anything begins to bite Britain’s energy sector, so the government has been forced into the insane position of lifting sanctions on Russian oil and gas in order to continue its ideological commitment to no new drilling off Scotland. In the past, the implicit accusation of not acting in the national interest would have set off a wave of wobbles along the contours of that spammy face. Now, Starmer basically just shrugged.
Mrs Badenoch seized on the irony of the policy, as well as kicking the boot into her rivals to her right: ‘We have Labour giving Russia money, Reform taking money from Russia’, she shouted.
‘I think if she’d actually done her homework she would support us on this,’ Sir Keir fired back, while not bothering to answer the question. In that, at least, things were the same as ever. Of course he claimed that there were lots of new sanctions coming in. This later turned out to be untrue, but even untruths have just become run of the mill with Sir Keir now. Does anyone really expect him to do anything than pump out porkies, like a Richmond hostage – sorry – sausage factory.
‘Being patronising is not a substitute for understanding policy’ Mrs Badenoch replied, accusing him of adopting a ‘pompous tone’. Though true; Sir Keir would buy a pint of milk in a pompous tone, it probably isn’t something she should take personally. ‘Why is he doing everything to save his job and nothing to save other people’s jobs?’ I’m not actually sure Sir Keir is doing everything to save his own job. He’s more like Captain Smith as imagined by James Cameron, standing dazed and inert as the Titanic sinks.
Perhaps realising that Sir Keir’s flush had busted, Mrs Badenoch turned her ire on the real problem: the Labour Party. ‘They aren’t getting rid of him over his terrible agenda – they actually like it! – they just want a better salesman,’ she crowed. This is the underlying problem of the current moment; Labour don’t seem to think that the problem is their national vandalism but that the person whom they nominated as the public face of it makes John Major look like Liberace.
Not only was Sir Keir’s ability to engage in prolonged, tantric-style boredom on display but so was the general lack of enthusiasm by his party. There are asthmatic sloths which could produce more fulsome cheers than Labour managed in the Commons today.
As soon as he could, Sir Keir scurried back to his Number 10 bunker
Even the backbench questions were pretty low energy. Starmer tried to blame farmers’ struggles on Vladimir Putin and Iran rather than his own vindictiveness and high energy prices. Lighter moments did come when rejected Rosie and Jim puppet made animate, the Green MP Hannah Spencer decided to make herself even less popular than she already was by asking a scolding hector of a question about why MPs got cheap drinks in Parliament’s bars. This animated Labour backbenchers – for whom a stiff drink is probably their only current comfort – more than anything else, cue much moaning.
Starmer had a good line about the Greens believing that their leader walked on water when in fact he just lived on it and didn’t pay his tax. Even Sarah Pochin of Reform, who sits behind Spencer, cheered this jab at Spencer, further adding to the slightly surreal atmosphere. Later Starmer admitted he had misled the house by accidentally announcing that he had made a trade deal with North Korea; given that this is only marginally less ridiculous than thinking Peter Mandelson was squeaky clean, you wonder what it was about today that made him inclined to apologise. While making deals with a sclerotic, authoritarian state which is obsessed with following different rules to everyone else might be in its interest, I suspect North Korea has better things to do.
There were some reminders of politics as it was; or rather how it might soon be. Esther McVey asked Starmer whether he agreed with Andy Burnham ‘when he says we should rejoin (the EU) or does he agree with him when he says we shouldn’t rejoin’. ‘Yes’, came the shout of one MP. The potential arrival of the Manchester Bambi to the house might yet provide opportunities for further skewering.
Still, a reminder of old Starmer, and how he would still be acting if he still had any sense of political momentum behind him, came as Labour MP Karl Turner stood up and asked why it was he’d had his mental health subject to baseless smears by ‘the boys in Number 10’ for his valiant stand against Labour’s attempt to abolish Jury trials. Sir Keir gobbled a promise never to use mental health against people and with that this surreal PMQs was over. As soon as he could, Sir Keir then scurried back to his Number 10 bunker, presumably to spend the afternoon stuffing by-election envelopes for Reform.
Comments