Tory backbenchers are outshining Kemi Badenoch at PMQs

Prime Minister’s Questions is rapidly becoming a challenge for Kemi Badenoch to come up with a topic that the Tories aren’t vulnerable on so she has a decent chance of attacking Keir Starmer. Given things aren’t exactly going swimmingly for the Labour government, it shows how very weak the Conservatives are that Starmer can get through entire sessions of the most dramatic point of the parliamentary week without sustaining even a light scratch. Today, though, the weakness of Badenoch’s attack was not in the topic, but in her own technique. The Tory leader ended up on the defensive instead of the man she was supposed to be questioning. 

Badenoch decided to make this week’s topic immigration law, opening with the case of a family from Gaza being granted asylum in the UK under the scheme designed for Ukrainians. Starmer replied to say he disagreed with the decision of the courts and that the Home Secretary was already looking at how to close the ‘legal loophole’ enabling that decision.