Lloyd Evans

It was deputies’ day at PMQs. Sir Keir Starmer is busy flying around the world yet again. This time he’s trying to charm the unlucky leaders of the G20. Angela Rayner took his place at PMQs opposite Alex Burghart for the Tories. His opener was terse and effective.  ‘What is the government doing to bring down inflation?’  Rayner was prepared. She reminded him that he was the ‘growth minister’ under Liz Truss when inflation soared to 11 per cent. Fair point. Burghart quoted the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast that Rachel Reeve’s smash-and-grab budget will lift inflation to three per cent. Rayner drawled out an identical reply and suggested that three percent is preferable to 11 per cent.

Cold drizzle falling on tweed. That was the abiding image of today’s protest in Westminster which filled Whitehall with tens of thousands of indignant farmers. Just two tractors were admitted. One was parked outside Downing Street and the other stood by the women’s war memorial. Groups of farmers clambered onto the metal flanks and took snaps of themselves. Many held home-made placards denouncing ‘farmer harmer’ Starmer and ‘Rachel Thieves’, the chancellor. Some of the more paranoid demonstrators saw Labour as a historic threat to the working class. Everyone seemed obdurately upbeat despite the freezing rain ‘First the miners, then the farmers, next it’s you.’ The simplest signs appealed to common sense. ‘No farmers, no food, no future.

PMQs under Sir Keir’s premiership is less entertaining and volatile than before. Blame the landslide. A huge government majority fills the backbenches with half-witted placemen and wonks who have no experience of public speaking. They can’t command the attention of a large crowd. They don’t look the audience in the eye. And they fail to use their voices at full volume. Instead, they hunch like scared beginners over scripted crib-sheets handed to them by the whips. Can none of these talentless hacks memorise a few short sentences? It’s embarrassing. Sir Keir was in control. Kemi was at sea And Labour’s inept gang of newcomers will never hold Sir Keir to account because they lack any spark of individuality. PMQs is like a church-hall Bible class.

Slightly childish and she didn’t win. That’s how Kemi Badenoch fared during her first bust-up with Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs. She began with a snippy reaction to his gag about the Tory party’s penchant for changing its commander-in-chief. Sir Keir said that Kemi was the fourth leader he’d faced in less than five years. She took this personally. ‘Thank you for that almost warm welcome,’ she carped. She then quoted David Lammy’s comment about Donald Trump. ‘A neo-Nazi woman-hating sociopath,’ Lammy had said, before his promotion to foreign secretary. She asked Sir Keir to apologise. An easy question to duck and Sir Keir took the opportunity to pose as an international power broker.

The Tories lied! That was the thrust of Rachel Reeves’s first Budget today. She was very specific about the falsehoods. At the time of the spring financial forecast, she said, ‘they hid the reality of their public spending plans.’ Parliament and the public were the victims of ‘a cover up’ about pressures on our economy. The cunning Tories even duped the Office for Budget Responsibility by failing to provide ‘all the information’. But hang on. The OBR is staffed by the brainiest economists in the country, if not the world. Is possible that this synod of geniuses were duped by a few Tory wonks armed with dodgy spreadsheets? Reeves appears not to have asked why the OBR were so easy to swindle. She simply accepted their account of the fiddle.

‘The battle of the gingers.’ That’s how Angela Rayner described her tussle with Oliver Dowden at deputy prime minister’s questions today. But it was a cosy chat rather than a vicious duel.  Dowden probed Labour’s plan to fleece businesses by raising employers’ National Insurance contributions. Rayner disregarded the issue and drawled out a reply using experimental syntax. ‘I remember the party opposite what they said to business. What was it? “Eff to business,”’ she said. Dowden made little attempt to interrogate her and kept smirking and playing for laughs. ‘This is our last exchange across the despatch box,’ he said, fuelling rumours that he plans to give up his seat once Rishi Sunak’s replacement is announced.

Who runs Britain’s foreign policy? Not the government, that’s clear. At PMQs, Sir Keir Starmer got a monumental roasting from Rishi Sunak whose patience seems to be wearing thin.  Technically, Rishi was asking questions but in fact he was correcting Labour’s latest raft of blunders. He began by urging the PM to have a discreet word with his foreign secretary, David Lammy, who appears to be learning on the job. Rishi suggested that Lammy should give China a rap over the knuckles for its ‘dangerous escalatory acts in the Taiwan Strait.’  Sir Keir nodded along. He agreed to ‘co-operate as a permanent member of the Security Council’ and he promised to ‘challenge on the point he makes where it’s needed.

Rishi Sunak’s fleet-footed performance at Prime Minister's Questions exposed many of Keir Starmer’s shortcomings as Prime Minister. Sunak is the most effective opposition leader since Tony Blair and he mauled Sir Keir today with a blend of decent gags and wily tactics. The Tory leader has the advantage of resembling a human being, while Sir Keir seems as cold and lifeless as an oil drum. Starmer has only three debating tactics. Blame the Tories, blame the Tories, blame the Tories.  The Tory leader has the advantage of resembling a human being Sunak opened with a joke about Sue Gray in relation to Labour’s new deal for workers. When, he asked, did Sir Keir become a fan of fire-and-rehire?