Yes or no? PMQs 21st May 2025

Overture

Seemingly, the PM aims to make PMQs into a tired, pointless country dance. It’s all about managing appearances, which is easy when almost everything is scripted and minor characters are never allowed supplementary questions to smash through his meringue answers.

Even with the greater latitude afforded to the Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch rarely scores, either. Last week she did, claiming that unemployment had risen ten per cent since Starmer took over. This galvanised the Government into a response and, since Sir Keir was not sufficiently on top of his brief to shoot her down straight away, it was left to Jake Richards (Lab, Rother Valley) to raise it straight after the session as a Point Of Order. Here is his POO, delivered with something of our Leader’s boorish snarl:

“That figure is completely and utterly incorrect. It is no wonder that George Osborne, the former Conservative Chancellor, has said that she has no economic plan if she cannot even get basic statistics right. Will the Leader of the Opposition return to the House and correct the record?”

The Speaker set him down gently: “You have corrected the record in your opinion. We will leave it there for now.”

Act One

This week, the PM began with a couple of sad items – is being a ‘mood hoover’ his technique to dull blades before they clash? – and went on to boast of his ‘deals’. One of these last was with the EU and included an astounding giveaway, extending for another twelve years the Union’s fishing rights under the Brexit withdrawal agreement that were due to expire in June 2026.

When Edward Heath allowed Continental ships the liberty to fish right up to our shoreline as part of our 1973 entry into the EEC, it was because of blithering incompetence, and so his government blew PR smoke all over it.

This PM has no such excuse, if that’s the word we seek. The despair so many of us feel is because we cannot always tell whether the Starmer Government knows what it is doing or not, and which is worse. In this case, it is the former.

Does the PM actually ‘have it in’ for fishermen and farmers? If so, would that be because those food producers are not ‘working people’ as defined by Sir Keir? They work longer than most and often earn less, but they are not wage slaves – is that the problem?

Starmer’s other ‘deals’ were with the US and India, and they too hardly bear critical examination. If you sent the PM out to get fish and chips, what on earth might he come back with?

As for his vaunted “fastest economic growth in the G7”, if we take in the world and his wife, GDP will go through the roof, and at the same time we will be bust.

The first question was from Lewis Cocking (Con), who asked when Starmer would “stop all illegal immigration”. This received the customary bureaucratic boilerplate: past Tory failures / government introducing legislation / Opposition voting against (skipping over the valid reasons). It was a very weak attack anyway – illegal immigration is only a fraction of the overall influx, and if the ‘youth worker visa’ system takes off, the traffickers may find a way to document their customers appropriately.

Next was Labour’s Sarah Owen, highlighting the plight of pensioners forced by inflation to use up their savings. Yet even the mightiest oak will bend in a strong wind, and the PM said: “We want to ensure that more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments as we go forward.” Everything depended on the economic improvements he foresaw.

Then came the main feature: a spat between Starmer and Badenoch on inflation, the causes of which are complex, not least ‘events, dear boy’. Kemi bore the usual tirade with equanimity but though she has the hide of a rhinoceros, she lacks its horn. She failed to puncture Starmer with her demand for a yes-or-no on whether he was planning a U-turn on the Winter Fuel Allowance; but then, he had just given his more nuanced response to Sarah Owen.

Interval

During these exchanges, the Speaker had to intervene to chide the Government benches for their noisy mockery, both Whips and “Boyzone at the back”. Such is the arrogant self-confidence of overwhelming power. A propos, post-PMQs, in a Point Of Order raised by Kirsty Blackman (SNP), Speaker Hoyle had to deliver a rocket to DWP and Treasury officials who were failing to respond in a timely fashion to her constituent.

Wera Hobhouse (Lib Dem) told of China’s refusal to admit her into Hong Kong, because of her stance on human rights as she suspected. The PM deplored banning people “for simply expressing their views”. He also assured John McDonnell (Ind) that he would continue to press the Egyptian Government for the release of long-imprisoned British-Egyptian human rights campaigner Alaa Abd el-Fattah.

However, Sir Keir’s sympathies were more limited towards Lucy Connolly, who is part way through a 31-month sentence for an intemperate tweet that she had deleted within a few hours. He told Rupert Lowe (Ind) that he celebrated the independence of British courts and was “strongly in favour” of free speech (a tradition of which he boasted to US President Trump) but was “against incitement to violence”. Some might say the jury is out in that case, in the ‘court of public opinion’.

Act Two

After ‘PM v LOTO’, Louise Jones (Labour) soothed Starmer’s unruffled feathers with a gift question on breakfast clubs and other measures to give children a better start in life.

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey asked yet again, somewhat pointlessly, about the Winter Fuel Allowance, but more penetratingly about changes to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP). The constituent’s case Davey quoted meant potentially an income cut of £12,000 a year. To the latter, Sir Keir gave his off-the-peg generalised response about necessary support, plus help to get work. Later, Labour’s Andy MacNae raised the same issue, specifically in relation to stressful multiple PIP reassessments; again, the PM spoke of the need to reform the system.

Jim Allister (TUV, North Antrim) highlighted another unresolved problem – that of Northern Ireland and its post-Brexit trading status with the EU, whereby British Steel could sell to the US free of tariffs, but not to NI. The PM acknowledged that it was a work in progress.

Alistair Carmichael (Lib Dem) reiterated the issue of family farm IHT. To skeptical noises, Starmer asserted the “very limited impact of the inheritance tax, only on farmers at a very high level”.

Dr Neil Hudson (Con) tried a portmanteau question on winter fuel payments, pensioner poverty, the “jobs tax”, family farm IHT and fishing rights. This was a mistake, as Sir Keir often gives vague answers even to focused queries; his reply was about our high growth (unanalysed) and trade deals (ditto).

Similarly, Lee Anderson (Reform) wanted to know exactly how many of Starmer’s 24,000 deportees were illegals who arrived by boat or were smuggled in by lorries. Sir Keir’s response to the “simple question” was to boast of the numbers and to criticise the Opposition for not supporting his Immigration Bill (again, without saying what their reasons may have been).

It might have been better to send this for a written reply and then castigate officials if they failed to be specific. All it did this time was give the PM the opportunity to note Nigel Farage’s absence from the Chamber.

A deadlier yes-or-no question might have been the one that ex-MP George Galloway suggests (see from 2:00 on), as to whether Starmer has ever met any of the three young men accused of setting fire to his current and former properties; but nobody would have the nerve. Besides, rumour has it that the whole affair has been overblown; by whom, and why, is not clear.

On an ostensibly unrelated matter, Winston Churchill is said to have been the last red-headed Prime Minister (though grey when in office).

US Education: a sandcastle at high tide, by 'Paddington'

Sackerson referred me to the following article, The intractable problem of finding a job with a university degree | Churchmouse Campanologist , discussing the relatively high rate of unemployment among university graduates.

I will preface my comments with a statement of my belief, which is that education is as important to the health of individuals and society as is exercise.

This lamentable situation should have been predicted, as it was inevitable.

Some of the pressures to increase percentages in higher eduation included:

By the 1980's, the 'good' jobs were being eaten up by automation (around 80% of the drain), and outsourcing. Small family businesses were driven out by the large corporations, often aided by political corruption.

College presidents were delighted by the prospect of moving up in the U.S. News and World Report rankings. They could then grow their power and status, usually by expanding adminstrative, staff, but rarely faculty. At latest report, Harvard University has more non-teaching employees than undergraduate students.

The finance industry saw the potential for getting their hooks into a large part of generations of students, and had their pet politicians write laws which protected their 'investment', even through bankruptcy.

Politicians were shown studies that indicated that college graduates had higher incomes, meaning more tax revenues, and committed fewer violent crimes. That made them desirable and controllable.

Parents were conditioned to believe that the only road to upward social mobility for their children was education. In the US, prior to the crash of 2008, this meant any degree in any subject.

And so we in the US moved from 15-30% going to higher education to 60%, with a stated goal of 85% or more. To assume that we could maintain the same standards as before is to deny the reality that there is such a thing as scholastic aptitude, a fiction maintained by many extreme liberals, and professors in colleges of education. The richer 'knew' that their children were better, and so didn't worry, until colleges actually looked at test scores, and many found out that they weren't. That was the beginning of the slide to mediocrity, not DEI programs.

Private universities still had the luxury of selective admission, until the costs rose too much, so didn't have to worry too much. The public ones, however, came under increasing political pressure from both the left and right to simultaneously increase graduation rates and competencies of those graduates. As anyone with knowledge of Statistics will tell you, this is, of course, impossible. The result has been an explosion of 'useless' degrees, and a dimunition of the quality of others, except those, such as Engineering and Accounting, who have professional licensure exams after graduation.

For a snapshot of reality, one has only to look at Math scores. Most US universities require a Math course to graduate. The lowest such is often called College Algebra, and is approximately at the level of the O-level of the 1970's. Only 15% of high school leavers have enough mastery to enter such a course, which translates to about 25% of students entering higher education.

I spent my career in a more-or-less open admission university, and dealt a great deal with this issue. The overall graduation rate for much of that time was about 35% in 6 years. The 25% who were able to take a Math course at the university level graduated in 6 years or less at a rate of about 70%. Those who did not took remedial coursework, and graduated at a 23% rate. To make that clear, the Math-competent students graduated at 3 times the rate of the others, regardless of their field of study.

The common response, when I presented this data to administrators, most of whom had zero Math background, was to 'teach slower', or 'teach better'. Never mind that I was unable to find anywhere on Earth that does better, nor that my colleagues had the highest teaching evaluations in the university, on average.

It is why I drink, and retired as soon as I could, only to watch all that I helped build collapse in ruin as bad decisions were compounded.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Kathryn Tickell, by JD

You may not know her name but I think you might enjoy her music.

Kathryn Tickell is a folk musician who plays The Northumbrian smallpipes as well as playing the violin/fiddle. I am not sure how well known she is beyond Northumbria and Tyneside but she is highly regarded among her peers in the world of folk music. She has been invited to play at the BBC's Folk Proms and has shared the stage with the great Richard Thompson as can be seen in two of the videos below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northumbrian_smallpipes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Tickell

https://www.kathryntickell.com/biography

The Kathryn Tickell Band at the Proms: Early Morning Air, Tullochgorum, Music For a New Crossing

Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening | One Night in Moaña | Seirm 2024 | BBC ALBA

Alistair Anderson, Richard Thompson & Kathryn Tickell

The Shee feat. Kathryn Tickell & Shona Mooney Perform Fiddle Duet / Sheepolska & more

Kathryn Tickell - 'Air Moving'

Fighting for survival - PMQs 14th May 2025

This week’s PMQs has more in it than can be covered here, because we take one key issue as our starting point to address the complex crisis facing Britain…

After last week’s stunning results for Reform in the local elections, the Prime Minister made a speech promising a significant reduction in net immigration. It failed to satisfy migration sceptics.

It upset the Left even more, whose ears pricked up at the dog-whistle phrase ‘island of strangers.’ They would not have started barking so furiously if they had remembered the Government’s agreement to grant work visas to an unlimited number of Indians (exempted from National Insurance Contributions for three years) and plans to allow in young (18-30) people carrying European passports (whatever their country of birth might be.)

They might also have recalled the Sentencing Council’s recommendation that the usual penalty for illegal immigration be reduced to nine months’ imprisonment, which is below the threshold for automatic deportation. It is interesting that although the Council is required to be impartial, seven of its eight judicial members were appointed (subject to the sitting Lord Chancellor’s agreement) by a Lord Chief Justice (Sir Ian Burnett) who was formerly a Liberal Democrat MP (see section 4 here.) Perhaps more than a pinch of compassion is baked into that cake.

So despite Sir Keir’s recent statement the general direction of travel on this issue seems clear.

Nevertheless in PMQs Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville Roberts challenged Starmer, saying his Monday speech contradicted his previous support for ‘migrants’ and free movement. ‘Is there any belief he holds that survives a week in Downing Street?’ she asked. Sir Keir’s reply - ‘Yes, the belief that she talks rubbish’ - was so brutal that it caused a stir on his own side as well as the Opposition’s.

He completed his response with dream-talk - ‘I want to lead a country where we pull together and walk into the future as neighbours and as communities, not as strangers’ - that left us not so much soothed as confused. How was this to be achieved?

The challenges of immigration are not simple. As Douglas Murray has said, ‘if you import the world’s people, you also import the world’s problems.’ The current dangerous confrontation between India and Pakistan over Kashmir is an example, though there is a third, giant country that has an interest: China, which for long has had its eyes on a neighbouring territory, Aksai Chin, plus part of Kashmir itself.

Again, the conflict between Israel and Gaza has resulted in public unrest in this country and influenced the election of several ‘independent’ Muslim MPs who repeatedly raise related questions in Parliament. Reportedly, half of Britain’s Jews have been considering emigration because they feel the authorities have not been grasping the Islamist nettle firmly.

There is a specific difficulty with the latter religion, because taken literally and to extremes it threatens to destroy our separation between Church and State. Theocratic rule - we have had this before, with Christianity - unites believers without reference to territorial limits, and the joys and terrors of the afterlife make any sacrifice or atrocity here well worth while. The easygoing liberal democracy we have enjoyed until recently is, historically speaking, a temporary sunlit clearing in an ancient monster-infested forest.

Fortunately most Muslims in the UK live by their faith’s general rules for daily living without a close reading of all its texts. Nevertheless there are unequivocal statements in those sources that are a kind of underbrush awaiting a firebrand to begin a conflagration. When society is under severe stress - persecution, war, economic breakdown - wild millennial movements can begin, as Norman Cohn illustrated nearly seventy years ago. This is why Ayaan Hirsa Ali argues the need for a Reformation in Islam to temper its absolutism and make it compatible with pluralist Western society.

Not all immigrants are Muslims, but Pew Research has forecast that by 2050 that religion’s followers may constitute up to 17 per cent of the British population. Without a determined national policy to inculcate support for impartial institutions the Labour drive for devolution may result in a proliferation of political, even clannish fiefdoms like those in London and Scotland; ones that may eventually cease to rely on the Labour Party.

Speaking of the latter, marxism is, of course, another uncompromising religion, replacing Heaven with a millennial vision of a stateless society once all opposition has been ruthlessly eliminated. It may have sprung from a sympathy for the suffering of the poor, but it has mutated into the pursuit of a single aim: not human happiness but social equality, whatever the cost. It is said that when Chairman Mao was told nuclear war would annihilate a third of humanity he replied, ‘Good, then there will be no more classes.’ Modern British socialism has added-in apocalyptic environmentalism so that we now have a Prime Minister who used to be, and maybe still is, a ‘red-green.’ We are overdue a Reformation of the Left.

There is another, ideology-free consideration: our country is over-populated. Already we import forty per cent of our food (by monetary value, I think; the dietary value may be greater.) The problem will increase: net migration is more than compensating for our declining birth rate, while farmland is being converted to housing, infrastructure, ‘green’ energy and wildlife set-asides. There may come a time in our unstable world, as happened during the Second World War, when the threat of food shortages raises its head. Even postwar we once kept a strategic food stockpile, but it was scrapped thirty years ago; not that it would have sustained us for long in any case. The British political class does not plan far ahead but reality makes no concessions to lack of preparation.

However, if we choose not to let our population shrink, then we must have a way to sustain it, which will be principally by boosting production to increase import substitution, and by foreign trade. We are in competition with countries whose land and labour are cheaper, or whose massive domestic market and economies of scale allow them to trade surpluses that undercut us. To stand a chance, we have to rebuild high-value engineering capacity, not just cling on to a couple of ageing steelworks. Our energy policy has to abandon its hippie Garden of Eden dreams and use every available fossil fuel resource to keep us going while we develop other, cleaner forms of cheap and reliable power. We cannot wait for Reform to oust the Energy Secretary in 2029, assuming that it can; we are fighting for our economic survival now.

Emergency funding may be needed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has damaged the economy and we cannot allow the Treasury to hamstring us. If Richard J Murphy and Steve Keen are correct in advocating Modern Monetary Theory, public debt is not the problem; it is private debt that hobbles the economy. Keen has some credibility: he is one of only twenty (his estimate) professional economists (out of 20,000 worldwide) to have predicted the Great Financial Crisis.

Will Starmer listen? Does he have the nerve for a radical Cabinet reshuffle? Does he have the wit to abandon the Grand Plan that he got Gordon Brown to design for him?One fears his arrogance and ideological rigidity will be his political undoing.

But he may do for us first before he goes.

From Wolves of Westminster

FRIDAY MUSIC: The Unthanks, by JD

Can't believe I haven't featured the Unthank sisters before now and I had forgotten how good they are. Their father George Unthank is also a folk singer with a quartet called the Keelers; worth investigating further I think. The sisters use 'folk' and traditional music as a starting point for their musical explorations which leads them in all sorts of interesting directions.

"Concise descriptions of The Unthanks range variously from “music that asks you to consider everything you know and un-think it”, to “a take on tradition that flips so effortlessly between jazz, classical, ambient and post-rock, it makes any attempt to put a label on them a waste of time”.

https://www.the-unthanks.com/

The Unthanks – Mount The Air (Folk Awards 2016)

The Unthanks - Magpie - Later... with Jools Holland - BBC

The Unthanks perform The Testimony of Patience Kershaw

The Unthanks - The Bay Of Fundy (Official Video)

River River by The Unthanks

The Unthanks - King of Rome (2012 Folk Music Awards)
(King of Rome was written by Dave Sudbury of Derby. Here is the link for the story of Charlie Hudson and his famous pigeon.
http://www.derbyphotos.co.uk/features....)

Unique and unbelievably excellent, I'm sure you will agree.

SATURDAY FOLK/ROCK: Roy Harper, by JD

Of the generation of troubadours who came of age in the London folk clubs of the 1960s, some have passed away, while others have surrendered to the regurgitation of the blandest form of acoustic folk music. But among the survivors, there is one figure whose body of work, comprising 23 studio LPs and almost as many live and compilation releases, has come to stand for a particularly single-minded form of integrity. That man is Roy Harper.

Now officially ‘retired’, and living in a secluded corner of Ireland, Harper has recently been hailed as a key influence by a much younger generation of devoted starsailors who instinctively recognise his innovations, his refusal to compromise and his visionary world view. The likes of Fleet Foxes and Jim O’Rourke are avowed fans; and in previous decades he has enjoyed public endorsements and tributes from the likes of Led Zeppelin, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour and many more.

It’s been a damned good innings and he’s still not out. In January 2013 Harper received the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Lifetime Achievement Award. In September 2013 Roy Harper: Man & Myth - The Documentary, directed by George Scott, was broadcast on Sky Arts and his first album in thirteen years, ‘Man & Myth’, was released on Bella Union followed by three special concerts. The album received rave reviews.

https://www.royharper.co.uk/

Roy Harper - When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease (Remastered)

'You' - Roy Harper, Kate Bush & David Gilmour

Roy Harper ► McGoohan's Blues [HQ Audio] Folkjokeopus 1969

Jimmy Page & Roy Harper - St Ives, UK 1984 (Same Old Rock)

At the flicks - PMQs 7th May 2025

Supporting Programme

Last week Labour lost nearly 200 seats in the council elections. The PM said it meant he should go ‘further and faster’ because he was ‘acutely aware that people aren't yet feeling the benefits.’

Another one with a tin ear is House Leader Lucy Powell, who exploded on-air when a Reform spokesman dared to raise the subject of rape gangs two days after Kemi Badenoch completely failed to nail Sir Keir in PMQs on the need for a national enquiry.

A propos, Private Eye (issue 1648, p.7) suggests Speaker Hoyle is a little too cosy with the Starmerites. The magazine claims he ignored ex-Labour MP Rosie Duffield who wanted to address trans rights in that session and that Labour whips have advised their flock not to trouble him on the subject of his expensive foreign jaunts.

Political economist Richard J Murphy says the Government is already collapsing, partly because of Number Ten’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, who he says allows Ministers no autonomy.

However Murphy also sees Starmer as moving towards the ‘far right’ ! Maybe that is correct, if smashing the country’s cohesion is far-right. The Government makes a show of tackling illegal immigration yet is working on a ‘youth mobility scheme’ to let in thousands of young European workers; the EU is being punitively awkward at this stage but who knows, we may end up with a switch from rubber-boaters to officially-Eurodocumented young men born outside the EU.

Main Feature

Starmer opened by boasting of his new trade deal with India. This further undermines employed Brits with a three-year NIC exemption for Indian workers coming to the UK, the Chancellor’s job tax hike for the domestic workforce having taken effect only last month.

The PM also registered concern about ‘tensions between India and Pakistan [that] will be of serious concern for many across Britain.’ Perhaps that was a ‘dog-whistle’ to alert us to the possibility of (more) inter-ethnic conflicts here.

Such potential is not lacking, thanks to the immigration policies of both major parties and their consequent need to cultivate minority votes. For example, five years ago Jess Phillips MP declared her support for Kashmiri separatists, apparently unaware that in addition to competing territorial claims by India and Pakistan, that region is bordered on its northeast by Aksai Chin, whose possession has been disputed by China since 1959, together with part of Kashmir itself. Last year she nearly lost her previously very safe Labour seat over another local/international ferment, this time over Gaza.

That last continues to vex. In this PMQs Leicester’s Shokat Ali (Independent) called on the PM to ‘end all UK military co-operation with Israel’ in the light of the latter’s ‘extermination’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Gazan civilians. Starmer replied that much of what Ali said was ‘simply not right’ and reiterated his standard line on the two-state solution, with humanitarian aid and the release of hostages. The prospects for success there - and for controlling Muslim dissent here - seem as slim as for putting out a Tesla battery fire.

Speaking of EVs, Mike Wood (Conservative) pointed out that Parliament has banned them in its underground car park for safety reasons yet the new Planning and Infrastructure Bill inhibits local authorities from banning the construction of battery energy storage systems near sensitive areas. Sir Keir said the Bill (which has power to override local objections and nature safeguards) would ‘drive’ the economy and that the OBR identified it as the ‘single biggest driver of growth.’

Power devolved is power retained, as the saying goes. There is a tension between Labour’s plans for progressive devolution and its appetite for authoritarian centralisation. The result is a growing public perception that we are a sham democracy.

This is why Prime Minister’s Questions are so important, and so disappointing. We are in the 64th month of our freedom from the EU and our representatives are still fluffing opportunities to call reinvigorated national power to account.

Last week the Leader of the Opposition’s inquisitorial failure was about the great scandal and cover-up of ‘grooming gangs.’ Today, the principal exchanges were about energy policy; they swirled around the now-cancelled winter fuel allowance, employment, the cost of domestic heating, ‘clean energy’ and so on. The PM countered with his measures to alleviate pensioner poverty, the Conservatives’ poor economic record and what they themselves had previously said about Net Zero, and how much Labour was spending into the economy.

Kemi did briefly quote Tony Blair’s comments about Net Zero (‘irrational’, ‘doomed to fail’) but Blair, who says he talks frequently to Starmer, was himself an early ‘global warmist.’ It may that Blair was airing his latest view for tactical reasons pre-May the First, hoping to persuade the electorate that Labour does indeed listen (and so should remain in power to complete his program of constitutional disruption that will make a return to small-c conservative values impossible.)

The Tories need to come clean and say:

‘Yes, we were wrong then and so are you now. Without abundant cheap energy our economy faces collapse. Like the US, we have to exploit fossil fuels heavily while we manage a transition to something more sustainable such as nuclear reactors and hydroelectric plants. Even windmills and solar panels are not ‘green’ when you take into account recycling issues, and the recent blackouts in Spain and Portugal show the strain on power grids caused by erratic inputs.’

Something along those lines. It is not just about oldies eating cold food with mittened hands, it is a national emergency.

Where is the focus, the drilling down that is needed to discomfit the PM (and his strange Energy Secretary) so that his replies can be exposed as inadequate prevarication to protect an unreflective dogmatism? Our ‘red-green’ leader needs to be roused from his woke slumber, before he wrecks the country beyond recovery.

Is Kemi Badenoch the best person to do it?

Shorts

‘Private Eye’ may gently cast doubt on the Speaker’s neutrality, but it would help matters if he were to permit - as he may - non-party leaders to ask supplementary questions when the reply they receive is not good enough; perhaps the reader may see some examples below. On a number of occasions a question with possible significant depths has come at or near the end of PMQs and received short shrift.

Now comes a selection of other queries in this session, again grouped by Party.

GREEN: Siân Berry asked about benefits for the disabled. The PM gave a generic response about support plus help into work.

SNP: Stephen Flynn mourned job losses in Scotland’s energy sector, contrasting this with the rescue of Scunthorpe; Starmer reprised his customary attack on the SNP’s failings in this area, plus education and the NHS.

CONSERVATIVE: Matt Vickers raised the plight of pubs as a result of increased NIC and reduced small business rate relief. Unhelpfully, ‘Sir Beer’ said no-one liked pubs better than himself and that the Tories were unwilling to say they would reverse the NIC increase. Aphra Brandreth asked the PM for an assurance that he would not hand over sovereign powers to the EU including controls over fishing waters; Starmer claimed he would always act ‘in the national interest’ and went on to speak of trade deals and a ‘reset’ with the EU.

LIBERAL DEMOCRAT: Party Leader Ed Davey complained of the loss of the Winter Fuel Payment and delays in improving social care; as to the first, the PM twitted Davey on the Lib Dems’ unwillingness to support the Government’s fund-raising measures and as for the second he said it would take time. Mr Davey then turned on President Trump’s tariffs, and the British film industry that would defeat the President’s assaults with ‘James Bond, Bridget Jones and Paddington Bear’; Starmer argued for pragmatism. Tessa Munt invited the PM to the unveiling of a memorial to our wartime photographic and interpretative service people. Dr Roz Savage spoke of inequality and poverty and asked Sir Keir to reverse changes to ‘the personal independence payment, the winter fuel allowance and the two-child benefit cap’; instead the PM replied on school breakfast clubs, increases to the minimum wage and the ongoing work of the child poverty taskforce.

LABOUR: Matt Western asked the PM to support British car-makers in discussions with the US President; Starmer criticised Reform’s proposals to tear up multilateral trade/tariff agreements and said his deal with India would be good for British jobs. Jack Abbott asked the PM for a final investment decision on Sizewell C for the sake of energy security and employment for young people in his constituency; Sir Keir said this would come in the spending review. Michelle Scrogham thanked the PM for his recent visit to Barrow where nuclear-armed submarines are being built; Starmer said it illustrated the benefits of Labour’s increased defence spending. The PM agreed with Dame Meg Hillier that social housing was a priority, as were housebuilding and tackling homelessness. Connor Naismith asked the PM for his support for an extension to HS2 to enhance Crewe’s strategic value; Starmer said it was under review and noted Labour’s decision to invest in the trans-Pennine route.

Scotland, already the subject of comments today, was mentioned in other exchanges involving Labour MPs north of the border. Elaine Stewart contrasted the falling NHS waiting lists in Wales and England with the healthcare mess left by the SNP; Sir Keir concurred. Glasgow’s Maureen Burke lamented the shortage of social housing in Scotland; again, the PM said a new direction was needed there. Another Scottish MP Kirsteen Sullivan highlighted the value of mental health support for children and Starmer spoke of Labour’s ongoing improvements in provision. For Na h-Eileanan an Iar (formerly Scotland’s ‘Western Isles’) Torcuil Crichton worried about reduced media coverage of Parliament because of Press Association redundancies; the PM praised Britain’s ‘free press and independent journalism’ (but Peter Oborne has a different view, criticising what he calls ‘client journalists’).

- And out we come into the sunlight, blinking...

From Wolves of Westminster