Criticising Sir Keir is like firing children’s sucker-tipped arrows at a battle tank.
When the Opposition leader spoke of inflation, higher taxes and unemployment he shot out the usual smoke shells of how much Labour was spending to ‘fix the country,’ playing Summer Santa as the Chancellor’s careworn head continued to nod. He then accused Badenoch of ‘talking the country down’ and resumed learning the lines in his folder, only looking up mildly as she clarified that she was ‘talking the Prime Minister down.’
Kemi asked about possible taxes on pension contributions, reminding us how Starmer’s own pension had been uniquely boosted by an Act of Parliament; the PM would not be drawn on the first point and ignored the second.
Later, the Tories’ Lincoln Jupp said ‘I can see why you call these sessions Prime Minister’s questions and not Prime Minister’s answers, Mr Speaker’ to cries of ‘more!’ but his topical cricket analogy (‘more pace and less spin’) was easily brushed off.
Also for the Conservatives, Graham Stuart ironically congratulated Starmer on his first year in office and compared the Labour manifesto to a popular book, The Salt Path, in that both were ‘a total pack of lies.’ The PM added another fib when he said it was the reason for his Party’s ‘landslide victory.’
In his opening remarks Starmer had his own ammunition to lob in the form of the Afghan scandal, in which a data breach under the previous Government had necessitated a rescue operation to give asylum to some 24,000 Afghani soldiers who had cooperated with our armed forces. This hugely expensive blunder had been kept secret since 2023 by the use of a ‘super-injunction’ - the first time the Government has employed one to cover its embarrassment and to hide the truth even from MPs. Before PMQs had begun the Speaker said ‘this episode raises significant constitutional issues. I have therefore asked the Clerks to consider whether any lessons need to be learned from this case.’
The first lesson, already well learned, is that we have two dying Parties vying to control a restive populace riven by conflicts of identity and loyalty which mass immigration has exacerbated.
Much of this has arisen from British military adventurism. As Sir Edward Leigh said on Tuesday and was quoted by Peter Hitchens today:
‘What an appalling mess, but part of the original sin was our intervening militarily and then scuttling out. On a wider point, may I take it that we have learnt our lesson and have got over the liberal imperial itch of the Cameron and Blair eras to intervene militarily in ungovernable countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya?’
LibDem leader Ed Davey promised his Party’s support if the PM decides to pursue a public inquiry into the affair. He went on to deplore the rise of antisemitism in this country yet also the ‘scenes’ from Gaza and Israel’s plan to ‘lock the whole population of Gaza into what is effectively a giant prison—a plan that would clearly amount to ethnic cleansing.’
Later, Labour’s Imran Hussein built on Davey’s Gaza comments, almost shouting as he said ‘Israel is starving Palestinian children… killing Palestinian children… genocide.’ Readers will be aware, not necessarily from the mainstream media, that there is more than one side to these stories. The PM agreed that alleged incidents needed to be investigated and reiterated his position that the hostages had to be freed, civilians protected and more aid sent into the Strip.
Other old wounds continue to fester. Colum Eastwood of the SDLP asked Starmer to reconfirm that ‘no murderer [from the Troubles in Northern Ireland] would be immune from prosecution.’ The PM replied that the last Government’s 2023 Act (protecting soldiers and other security personnel) had been struck down (by Northern Ireland’s High Court and Court of Appeal) as unlawful (as being incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.) He promised to create ‘a secure, transparent system.’ We shall see; Starmer’s comment ‘This is a complicated issue and we have to get it right’ may imply a lengthy delay. Meanwhile this is another complication made by our accepting the ECHR.
For the Conservatives Sir Desmond Swayne reminded us that ‘Jack Straw told us that the Human Rights Act 1998 places on us no expectation that we will remedy a declaration of incompatibility issued by a court, so the Prime Minister is wrong to say that the legacy Act is struck down. His own proposals, which open the door to compensation to Gerry Adams and place in jeopardy our own servicemen, present enormous difficulty to those of us who have served.’ The PM contented himself with rehearsing what he had said to Colum Eastwood.
Were he to play ‘Just A Minute’ Sir Keir might often have the hooter for repetition and deviation.
Our Government’s wish to tighten its grip on us citizens was helped by Paul Waugh (Lab Co-op) who said ‘we need to speed up the roll-out of digital IDs’ so that we could tackle ‘the menace of illegal working, particularly by illegal migrants from Iran and Iraq in bogus barber shops and fake vape shops.’ Starmer was pleased to agree.
This was the last PMQs of term. Honourable Members refrained from throwing their caps into the Thames, signing each other’s blouses and shirts and coating everyone with flour and egg. The fun of ruining the country will recommence in September.
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