Keir Starmer fails to use the ‘Dom bombs’ at PMQs

Keir Starmer was back on his home turf at Prime Minister’s Questions today, attacking Boris Johnson for what he said was a lack of competence in containing the spread of the Delta variant. The Labour leader focused on the delay in putting India on the red list, turning one of the Prime Minister’s stock phrases against him, saying: ‘While the NHS was vaccinating, he was vacillating.’ Starmer said that if Johnson had acted quickly enough to put India on the list, ‘we wouldn’t have had the Delta variant here’, later adding: ‘The British people don’t expect miracles but they do expect basic competence and honesty.’ He asked why anyone should believe Boris Johnson given the number of times he had given assurances about getting on top of the pandemic which were soon proven terribly wrong.

Johnson’s retorts weren’t particularly striking: he placed heavy emphasis on the vaccine rollout, as usual, and complained once again that Starmer ‘can’t decide what he thinks from one week to the next.