Keir Starmer had a weak PMQs

Keir Starmer had an unusually weak Prime Minister’s Questions today. He chose to attack Rishi Sunak on the nurses’ strikes, insisting that the Prime Minister could avert the walkouts, which begin tomorrow, by having a meeting with the nurses. ‘All the Prime Minister needs to do to stop that is to open the door and discuss pay with them,’ he claimed. He also described the first nationwide strike by nursing staff as a ‘badge of shame’ for the government. 

Not only was Sunak able to deflect this by pointing out that Labour wasn’t prepared to give in to the Royal College of Nursing’s demand for a 19 per cent pay rise, but he also accused Starmer of being weak himself, when that political flaw was precisely what the Labour leader was building up to for the PM. Sunak said: ‘The honourable gentleman says to get round the table, but we all know what that is, Mr Speaker, that is just simply a political formula for avoiding taking a position on this issue.