Starmer leads on oligarchs at a strange PMQs

Prime Minister’s Questions today had a strange tonal disconnect to it. The session began with a standing ovation for the Ukrainian ambassador Vadym Prystaiko, who was watching from the gallery. Normally, clapping is banned in the Commons, but today the Speaker tore up protocol and MPs from across the house (and journalists, who by convention don’t clap anything) stood up to applaud Prystaiko. It was a moving moment. But it was not matched by the tone of Boris Johnson, either in his exchanges with Keir Starmer or indeed in the rest of the session.

The Labour leader chose to focus on sanctions and economic crime. He asked why certain oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, had not been sanctioned by the UK, saying it was ‘shameful’ that we only know about their London properties because Alexei Navalny risks his life to expose them. He argued that oligarchs were getting 18 months to sell their properties thanks to a delay in the implementation of the register of ownership in the Economic Crime Bill.