Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

PMQs has become painfully predictable

(House of Commons)

Kemi Badenoch had an odd line of attack at Prime Minister’s Questions: she chose to pursue Keir Starmer over what he knew about Louise Haigh’s fraud conviction. It is not a story that has any impact on people outside Westminster, but it did still highlight how much Starmer has become like the politicians he used to ridicule: he did not answer the questions at all and often ended up making points about the Tories being just as bad as Labour.

The Conservative leader initially mocked Starmer for using a planted question from an overly loyal Labour backbencher about immigration to celebrate what he was doing to control Britain’s borders. Badenoch pointed out that Labour had voted against all of the Tories’ measures on immigration, before moving onto what she said had been ‘on the lips’ of every Labour MP, which was his appointment of a ‘convicted fraudster to be his Transport Secretary’.

Isabel Hardman
Written by
Isabel Hardman
Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator and author of Why We Get the Wrong Politicians. She also presents Radio 4’s Week in Westminster.

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