Lloyd Evans

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?

Shortly before noon, Sir Keir Starmer and his closest chums peeped out from behind the Speaker’s chair to see if it was safe to enter the chamber. Led by their boss, the furtive cabal of Granny-chillers sidled forward and tiptoed to their seats like naughty teenagers late for a geography class. What had they been doing backstage? Knitting cardigans for hypothermia victims perhaps. A few perfunctory chirrups greeted their arrival but most Labour MPs kept quiet. They were too scared to cheer the man who wants to raise cash by mugging pensioners this winter. Rishi Sunak went straight for Sir Keir’s weak spot and asked about an ‘impact assessment’ into his plan to fleece the elderly.  ‘The fact of the matter is,’ said Sir Keir, ‘they left a £22 billion black-hole.

Power hasn’t altered Sir Keir Starmer. His frosty and unamused demeanour remains. No hint of warmth or joy has penetrated his defensive outer rind. He still looks like a mourner-for-hire at an oligarch’s funeral.  Today at PMQs he was faced by a quick-witted and forceful Rishi Sunak who clearly relishes the role of battering ram. The Tories may start to question the wisdom of replacing him. Which of their leadership candidates could match this masterclass in how to grill an incumbent PM? Rishi selected a single issue and hammered away at it until he got a useless reply. Then, having described how useless it was, he moved onto a new question. Today he managed to prohibit just one activity.