Copyright newstatesman
Today’s PMQs was a fairly staid session where the most interesting action, from my point of view, took place on the government backbenches. But first, the main event: Kemi Badenoch’s six questions for Keir Starmer. Badenoch went after Starmer on taxes. Will income tax, national insurance or value added tax go up, despite this being ruled out in Labour’s election manifesto? Starmer wouldn’t say, falling back on the usual response that these things are a matter for the Chancellor at the Budget and that it would be wrong to pre-empt that (it’s in four weeks). Then the Tory leader served what she thought was an ace – she revealed she had asked the same question, “word for word”, back in July and got a more forthcoming response. Take your wins where you can find them, I suppose. But her line of questioning did expose increasing government evasion about the once cast-iron pledge of no tax rises. Starmer promised no return to austerity, suggesting this Budget will be light on departmental spending cuts. It was a competent if unimaginative run of questions from Badenoch, though she slightly embarrassed herself by trying to claim credit for Starmer’s £8bn Tycoon jet deal with Turkey, announced this week. Two rows behind Starmer, sitting together, beside the gangway, were Angela Rayner and her successor as deputy leader, Lucy Powell. While the rest of the PLP played along with the roars, laughter and cheers that characterise these sessions, Rayner and Powell both sat in stately silence watching the Prime Minister bat through questions. Neither of them said a word throughout the session, bar a murmur from Rayner when Badenoch said she had “resigned in disgrace”. From where I was sitting in the press gallery, Rayner’s words of response appeared to be “it wasn’t a disgrace”, though I’m no lip reader. Both women are now established as powerful players in Labour politics who are in a position to openly criticise the PM’s performance and political strategy. Watch that space. Their schtum act was a contrast to some eager newbies. Henry Tufnell, elected to the previously unwinnable rural seat of South Pembrokshire, was so animated in his support for the Prime Minister that he got a telling off from Lindsay Hoyle. “The pantomime season hasn’t arrived,” the Speaker drolled. In the mop up of later questions, we witnessed the now familiar flurry of attacks on Reform from the Labour and Lib Dem benches. Sir Ed Davey asked the PM to begin an investigation into Russian meddling in British politics. Starmer took the opportunity to do a pincer movement on Reform with Davey, claiming that the UK wouldn’t be a trusted member of Nato with a Reform government because Farage’s party is, he claimed, “Putin friendly”. Anneliese Midgley, the staunch trade unionist MP for Knowsley, asked if the PM would agree with her that Reform’s opposition to the Employment Rights Bill shows they are no friend of the working class. Agree he did. [Further reading: What’s next for Angela Rayner?]
