Starmer and Sunak argue about a man called Phil

Keir Starmer opened PMQs by describing ‘the plight of the Member for Mid Norfolk’, whose mortgage had gone up by £1,200 a month and had to ‘quit his dream job to pay for it’. That Substack post from Tory MP George Freeman isn’t quite as potent as a note left on a Treasury desk, but it allowed the Labour leader to attack Sunak by saying ‘a Tory MP counting the cost of Tory chaos after 14 years, and we finally discovered what they meant when they said ‘we’re all in this together”.’

Rishi Sunak’s response was to accuse Labour of not having a plan, and to quibble the figures about the rise in mortgage costs. He listed the action the government had taken to help homeowners, and said: ‘What we have recently seen is mortgage applications now at a multi-month high as a result of confidence returning.’ He added that Rachel Reeves had been ‘equally confused’, going from backing tax cuts while in Davos to calling them a ‘scorched earth policy’ back in Westminster.