The PMQs question that should really worry Keir Starmer

The leader of the opposition found it difficult to land her punches in Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions, with Kemi Badenoch not quite able to work out how she wanted to attack Sir Keir Starmer. The Prime Minister fended off a number of issues from the Tories, from the economy to the Chagos Islands to Gerry Adams – but in the end it was a question from his own side that threw the Labour leader off balance.

It wasn’t the usual soft questioning the Prime Minister might have expected from his own party when new Labour MP Brian Leishman stood up to speak. The left-leaning politician for Alloa and Grangemouth – who managed to push out SNP incumbent John Nicolson in July – lambasted the Labour leader for failed promises on the Grangemouth refinery, noting that the party pledged during the election campaign to ‘step in and save’ the oil factory. ‘If the refinery closes then thousands of jobs will be lost and Scotland’s national security will become massively weaker,’ the Labour MP said.