The end of Sir Keir’s premiership, and especially his last few PMQs, was always going to be less of a swansong and more a prolonged squeal. The Prime Minister makes no secret of his hatred of even being in parliament, let alone answering questions there – if ‘answering’ is the right word for the mix of slogans, bluff and anger which make up his Wednesday lunchtime offerings. Who knows when his last will be, but it now won’t be long. I suspect he will not miss it.
One person who will probably miss him is the Leader of the Opposition. There was a touch of sadness in Kemi Badenoch’s voice as she realised this would be one of her final skewerings of the Oinking One. Perhaps the disappointment was not entirely altruistic: she has got good at baiting out the flouncy, petulant and dishonest Starmer. The Bambi-faced air of perpetual disappointment that leaks from Burnham might prove more difficult to goad.
Alas, parliament is an increasingly censorious and mawkish place
Starmer entered parliament to resounding cheers from the same MPs who’d defenestrated him 48 hours earlier. As with many things about the Labour party, it brought to mind the religious life of the Aztecs, whereby a sacrificial victim would be cheered and lauded with great acclaim before being marched up to the top of a pyramid to have his heart cut out with an obsidian knife. ‘If it’s all going so fine,’ replied Kemi Badenoch, ‘why is he resigning?’ Her criticism drew squawked complaints – a great outpouring of schoolmarmish huffing from the Labour backbenchers, amusing in its very brazenness. The truth proved deeply offensive. If you don’t like it being pointed out that you’ve knifed the Prime Minister, perhaps the solution is not to knife the Prime Minister?
Badenoch also made reference to the erstwhile Mayor of Manchester in her opening and to her own party’s by-election victory in Aberdeen: ‘I’m much happier with my new MP than he is with his.’ It has been a recent tactic of Mrs Badenoch’s to remind people that Sir Keir was enabled in his campaign of incompetence by the Labour party. The Prime Minister may be as popular as an ingrowing toenail, but the Leader of the Opposition is eager to point out that dumping him for a younger model doesn’t absolve Labour of their faults over the last two years.
She drew attention to the defence disaster which ultimately proved one incompetence too far for Sir Keir. He was having none of it; ‘We’ve delivered the biggest sustained boost to defence spending since the 1980s,’ he intoned. Even in his final moments the little piggy eyes refuse to see what is clearly in front of him. Like many of Sir Keir’s qualities, this would be admirable in a crash test dummy but less so in a prime minister.
Perhaps realising it wasn’t worth engaging with Jim Henson, Mrs Badenoch turned her attention to the muppets. She listed the ways in which ministers had failed, starting with the Chancellor. Of course, unless Andy Burnham suffers a major bump on the head in the next week or so, it’s the end of Rachel Reeves in No. 11 too. The vultures of reality are circling a chancellor who has existed in a realm of complete fantasy since her appointment. An abandoned department store is wanting its mannequin back.
Reeves glared angrily at Mrs Badenoch as she dissected both her legacy and her disloyalty. Badenoch pointed out that having failed to turn up to support Starmer during his Downing Street resignation speech despite living next door, the Chancellor had found time to elbow her way towards the front of the Burnham victory photo in parliament. Sir Keir gallantly tried to defend her, claiming she had ‘ended austerity’ without any apparent inkling that the engorged welfare bill was part of the problem. Again, reality has not proved the PM’s strong suit. By the end, Reeves looked close to tears.
Ed Miliband was next, Mrs Badenoch pointing out that he couldn’t even be bothered to show up in the House of Commons today. ‘Not the first time he’s betrayed someone close to him,’ she observed. Interestingly, Sir Keir didn’t seem to contradict her observations about Miliband being treacherous and incompetent. Instead, he claimed that he was ‘handing over the country in better shape than I found it’. Which country? Mauritius? La La Land?
The Education Secretary was next on Mrs Badenoch’s roster. She referred to Bridget Philistine as ‘a spiteful class warrior’. That’s actually one of the nicer things I’ve heard her described as. Today polling revealed that her approval rating among teachers – not exactly a right-wing profession – was 0 per cent. As with Miliband, Starmer tellingly chose not to defend Phillipson’s record or basic competency and spoke only of her working-class roots. Philipson pulled a face across the despatch box like a blobfish filling in its tax return.
Finally, Mrs Badenoch turned on Labour backbenchers. The people whose equivocation and spinelessness ultimately did for Sir Keir. Was he disappointed in them, she asked? Sir Keir was magnanimous again: ‘I’m very proud of all Labour MPs coming from all different backgrounds and all different parts of the country.’ He’s right of course: some worked in comms, some in charity PR, while others worked in human rights law. Some are from Camden, others from Islington. When you look at the Labour backbenches, all life is there – it’s just none of it seems to have a backbone.
For some reason Sir Lindsay took exception to Mrs Badenoch’s use of the word ‘betrayal’ to describe how Sir Keir had been treated by his backbench and cabinet colleagues. I’m not sure what word the Speaker would use to describe the appearance of most of them in that picture with Andy Burnham in Westminster Hall, gurning as if the House of Commons tofu option had been spiked with MDMA. It didn’t exactly sing ‘wholehearted support’ did it? Alas, parliament is an increasingly censorious and mawkish place, where emotional blackmail and tone-policing have trumped the making of arguments. One expects this of the penny dreadful MPs, less so of the Speaker.
He wasn’t the only one to take exception to Mrs Badenoch’s language. She reportedly had a bust-up with both Liz Kendall and Phillipson after the session. The spat apparently ended with Badenoch telling Philistine: ‘I will fight you all the way – you are destroying children’s lives.’ They might be changing their leader, but Labour’s lack of imagination and inspiration won’t go away. Today showed that language policing is all they’ve got left.
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