The honour of welcoming the PM back to the House fell to the Conservatives’ Lincoln Jopp, who gained his seat for the first time in 2024. Asking for a promise that Starmer would never again miss a Wednesday session he said last week’s PMQs were “a bin fire.” There are two views about that and I have already discussed James Cartlidge’s inept grilling of David Lammy.
Ex-Army Jopp also managed to bracket himself with Sir Keir on the subject of attempted coups (“I particularly remember being in west Africa in 1997.”) Frankly almost anyone other than Ed Miliband would be preferable in Number Ten, though whoever it is will be merely a fresh teddy on the radiator of Labour’s truck with its cargo of “watermelons.”
Despite its Net Zero zaniness Labour is losing voters to the Green Party, the “limes” who are eco-green outside and Pally-green inside - its leader “Zack Polanski” named “calling out the genocide in Gaza” as one of his missions and within a week of taking over got Conference to label Israel “apartheid.” Sir Keir’s paltering over “Palestine” has not stemmed the outflow which has split like the four rivers leaving the Garden of Eden: Greens, Lib Dems, Reform and militant Islamists.
It did not continue well.
Even Starmer’s prefatory remarks were like pogo-sticking in a minefield:
Marking Armistice Day (for the day before) he welcomed 100-year-old veteran Mervyn Kersh to the Gallery, noting that Kersh had entered Bergen-Belsen days after it was liberated. Sir Keir also remembered Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg who died last week. So, a nod to the Jews having also given heart to the “odium theologicum” of Hamas. I was once told of a union rep who would metaphorically pour oil on troubled waters - and then set fire to it.
A centenarian not mentioned by the PM is Alec Penstone, who shocked Good Morning Britain presenters by saying the sacrifice of his comrades “was not worth it,” seeing what has become of the country. For the avoidance of doubt, he was not against immigrants “provided they behave themselves”: his objection was
“There are too many people with their fingers in the till. Faith in our country was the best thing but nowadays there’s too many people that just want their own little corner and bugger everybody else.”My father, who was with the British 11th Armoured Division that freed Bergen-Belsen, would have agreed. There is the money-grubbing, particularly of the Right, and the power-grabbing, particularly of the Left who have been happy to suppress mention of industrial-scale organised rapes for the sake of holding onto votes; I now wear a dog-whistle as an amulet against Lucy Powell.
Starmer went on to welcome the £33 billions that SSE plans to invest in “clean energy projects.” SSE is not a charity: 80 per cent of its shares are held by institutions, led by corporate investors Blackrock and Vanguard. Forty years ago this month Harold Macmillan told the Tory Reform Group of the process by which Britain would impoverish itself with the sale of national assets: “First the Georgian silver goes, and then all that nice furniture that used to be in the saloon. Then the Canalettos go.” We don’t know what’s next because an FOI request for minutes of the PM’s meeting twelve months ago with Bill Gates and Blackrock’s Larry Fink was refused. Liberty depends on property; maybe that is the unifying theme of Labour’s confiscatory policies.
And so to the show which Mr Jopp awaited so eagerly.
The curtain-raiser was from Labour’s Sally Jameson about giving Coal Board pension scheme surpluses to its members as promised in the 2024 election manifesto. From my IFA days I recall that it has never been definitively decided whether the surplus in a “defined benefit” scheme belongs to the employee or the employer - the latter is responsible for remedying a deficit and by implication may be entitled to any positive excess. But if £2.3 billion extra is passed on to ex-miners it will be a shot in the arm for what used to be the Red Wall constituencies. There may be a political conundrum in that Starmer has said he represents working people who do not have savings...
The main feature was Mrs Kemi Badenoch who mounted a broad attack on the PM beginning with the Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s claim that there is a “toxic culture” in Downing Street. Sir Keir praised Mr Streeting’s achievements in over-delivering NHS appointments and scrapping NHS England. “He is doing a great job” said the PM, eschewing the now-ominous phrase “full confidence.”
“Full confidence” was a term also not used, as Kemi noted, for Starmer’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney who seems to have done so much to help him into Number Ten. The matter of £750,000 in undeclared donations to Labour Together is still a reputational issue even though the Electoral Commission has ruled out another investigation. Nevertheless, Sir Keir must hesitate at the thought of “dropping the pilot.”
The previous evening, Starmer’s allies had accused Streeting and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband of launching leadership bids; he denied authorising such criticisms. The Daily Mail tells us Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is also touted as a potential successor and an unnamed minister is quoted as saying the PM is at the mercy of “feral” Labour MPs from the 2024 intake. Badenoch quoted the adjective but Sir Keir insisted his team is “united.”
The audience participation was becoming lively. Speaker Hoyle told them “If people want to audition for a pantomime, I suggest they go to the Old Vic.”
The exchanges moved on to the economy with the usual claims, counter-claims and blamestorming. Employment was up and so was unemployment. One Starmer boast, “We have secured £230 billion of private investment” reminds us again of the Earl of Stockton’s 1985 comments about sell-offs.
We cannot detail all other questions but the BBC continued its disastrous lying streak by misquoting Rupert Lowe when he called for “the reintroduction of the death penalty for both foreign and domestic criminals” for extreme crimes. They told us he had said “overseas and foreign criminals” and were swiftly forced to correct their “error.” Does nobody at Broadcasting House have access to Hansard online, where the draft transcript typically appears two hours after PMQs? Of course they do.
No sooner had Sir Keir finished echoing (Labour) Kevin Bonavia’s praise for our armed forces veterans than the Tories’ Stuart Anderson asked about “lawfare” against them. He referred to a letter signed by nine generals deploring “legal activism.” For context, last month the Government approved a new inquest into the SAS’ 1987 operation at Loughgall and SAS recruitment and retention has been reportedly plummeting. There is however no provision in the proposed Northern Ireland Troubles Bill for rescinding the Blair-era “letters of comfort” sent to Republican terrorists responsible for an estimated 300 murders. The PM “respected” the generals’ service and their views and said something about “getting the balance right”; perhaps the BBC could offer us one of their helpfully inaccurate paraphrases.
PMQs did not end well, either.
Labour’s Richard Quigley told the House of an NHS Trust’s decision to place a 19-year-old anorexic on an “end-of-life care pathway”:
“The decision directly contradicts guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and the statement from the Minister for Care in September that eating disorders are not a terminal illness.”“My thoughts are with Lilly and her family,” said Sir Keir. The details were “deeply concerning.” He would “ensure a swift response” from Health Ministers. Squeeze the comfort out of that.
Decriminalising late term abortion; assisting suicide; executing young mental health sufferers. We are in the grip of an official death cult. I would like to see this Satanic trend to be consumed in a “bin fire”.
David Lammy may have his faults, but he is a Christian.
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