Lloyd Evans

Genuinely, a historic day at PMQs. The plates are shifting. Labour whips spotted that Nigel Farage’s name was on the order paper so they got a house-trained pipsqueak, John Slinger, to give Sir Keir Starmer a chance to launch a pre-emptive strike. Slinger was called first and he asked about Farage’s remark that Reform is ‘open to anything’ on the NHS. Sir Keir took his cue and declared that the NHS will always be ‘free at the point of use’, falsely suggesting that Reform plans to scrap this principle. Then Farage was called. His question was salty but unremarkable. He asked Sir Keir to explain to an RAF veteran why the winter fuel allowance has been scrapped while money is available to subsidise the surrender of the Chagos Islands.

Great stuff from Kemi Badenoch at PMQs. She was entertaining, tricky, probing, unpredictable. If she keeps this up she may attract more Tory members to the chamber on Wednesdays. Many seem to find other things to do. She began by calling Sir Keir a liar: ‘Speaking about the employment bill last week he misled the house. He was not on top of his own bill.’ Up popped the Speaker. ‘We can’t accuse the Prime Minister of misleading the house.’ That got everyone’s attention. Kemi should try it each week That got everyone’s attention. Kemi should try it each week. She rephrased her question and started to go through the bill in detail. She quoted paragraphs, subclauses, numbers in brackets. She knew the fiddly bits in the margins that nobody looks at.

The Commons was half asleep at PMQs. Trump’s re-election has severely damaged Sir Keir Starmer’s authority. Last summer, he unwisely allowed his Labour colleagues to campaign for the worst presidential candidate in American history. When Kamala lost, so did the Labour leader who now has zero influence over the US. He couldn’t even bring himself to say ‘Trump’ today, let alone to acknowledge his inauguration on Monday.  Kemi Badenoch might have gloated over Sir Keir’s American gamble but she ignored it entirely. And she failed to bring up the Southport triple-killer. As if obeying the Labour whips, she asked about education, and she claimed that Tory reforms had propelled Britain’s kids to the top of the international league tables.

Robots will never replace Sir Keir Starmer. No need. Silicon Valley is already using him as the template for an army of cloned officials to be sold worldwide. The Starmer App was on display at PMQs as he answered planted questions at the start of the session. A tame backbencher said the word ‘train station.’ ‘We’re taking railway services back into public ownership,’ parroted Sir Keir, ‘and making ticketing better and fairer.’ A second MP said ‘teachers.’ ‘Skilling up the next generation is vital to economic growth,’ came the auto-reply. Up stood the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, and she had targets aplenty to choose from. The government is reeling.

Finally, we heard it. At PMQs today, the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, dropped the euphemism ‘grooming’ and said ‘rape gangs’ to describe the networks of predominantly Muslim men who prey on underage girls. Sir Keir tried to defuse the issue in his opening comments by dismissing calls for a national enquiry. ‘The Jay inquiry… [took] seven years, which would take us with a further inquiry to 2031,’ he said. (Perhaps he meant 2032.) He knows why a new inquiry would take years just to get started. Every cop and local councillor, fearing prison, would lawyer-up at public expense to minimise their culpability. As for the issue of rape gangs, it’s here to stay But he blamed the victims for creating these obstacles.

Kemi Badenoch got tough with Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs. Not tough enough, but at least she led on a decent issue: old folks in distress. She mentioned the Waspi women and then she changed tack, to wrong foot Sir Kier, and threw him a short but specific question. How many new applications for pension credit have been received since the winter fuel allowance was cut in the budget?  Kemi was better today but she lacks bite Sir Keir didn’t know. So he evoked the black hole to get him out of trouble. ‘We had to put the finances back in order,’ he cried. Kemi gave Sir Keir the information he didn’t have. Pension credit is owed to 850,000 citizens who haven’t claimed it. ‘If they sign up that will cost £2.

Flunked it again, unfortunately. Kemi Badenoch chose poor tactics at PMQs. She made flabby speeches instead of hitting the PM with short, sharp questions.  She led on immigration – one of the Tories’ weakest topics. Sir Keir Starmer immediately mentioned the ‘open border’ policies that allowed nearly a million migrants to arrive in a single year. Kemi got specific. She said Sir Keir had opposed deportations for foreign-born criminals. One of these convicts went on to commit homicide. ‘He was able to stay here and murder because people like this man campaigned against deporting criminals. Will he apologise for signing these letters?’ A tough question but Sir Keir pulled off a sneaky shimmy. He blamed the Tories.

Labour thinks it can win on immigration. Their new strategy was road-tested today at PMQs as backbencher Olivia Bailey opened the session saluting Keir Starmer’s gang-busting policies. ‘Internationalist co-operation, shared intelligence and joint law enforcement,’ said Bailey, ‘are the best way to end the vile people-smuggling trade.’   Starmer rose to agree with his stooge. ‘The broken immigration system’ of the Tories is being fixed, he said, and 9,400 people ‘who have no right to be here’ are being rounded up and sent packing. ‘We got the flights off the ground,’ he boasted. This blew Kemi Badenoch off course. She wanted to talk about Louise Haigh, the ex-transport minister.

Third time lucky for Kemi Badenoch. The Tory leader’s first two attempts to crush Keir Starmer at PMQs failed. Today she began by attacking the chancellor whose career is in quicksand and who admitted to the CBI that her smash-and-grab budget was so destructive that it mustn’t be repeated. ‘I’m not coming back for more borrowing or more taxes,’ said Rachel Reeves on Monday. Kemi asked Starmer to repeat that pledge in the house. Not a bad question. Starmer said he couldn’t write ‘five years of future budgets’ at the despatch box. Not a bad answer. Kemi’s team should have seen it coming. She boasted that Starmer had made an embarrassing admission by failing to endorse Reeves’s pledge. Well, sort of.