Pmqs

Sir Keir Starmer used Prime Minister’s Questions today to show how hard it is going to be for Boris Johnson to move on from the Sue Gray report. The Labour leader acknowledged as he opened that there was going to be a statement on that inquiry right after this session, and so he was going to focus on the cost of living. It underlined that even if the Prime Minister manages to keep his backbenchers sufficiently calm to ‘survive’ the Gray report, that survival is not going to be followed by a swift recovery of his political fortunes. Long-time critic of the Prime Minister William Wragg asked a zinger of

Prime Minister’s Questions opened with Sir Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson agreeing that the anonymous briefing about Angela Rayner was unacceptable. The Labour leader speculated that Johnson would have ‘whipped his backbenchers to scream and shout – and that’s fine’, before demanding that he send a ‘clear message that there’s no place for sexism or misogyny’. Johnson has been consistent on this point, rushing to distance himself from the story as soon as it emerged. It has, though, sparked a wider debate about sexism in misogyny in parliament which is likely to dominate the agenda into next week too: on which more below. Starmer’s questions, though, were dominated by the cost of

Prime Minister’s Questions took a rather bizarre twist this afternoon when the Labour leader ended up demanding Boris Johnson apologise to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Prime Minister reportedly complained to Tory MPs last night about Justin Welby’s criticism of the government’s Rwanda asylum policy. Sources at the meeting said Johnson had claimed Welby was ‘less vociferous’ about Vladimir Putin than he had about this policy – something the Church of England has already condemned as a ‘disgraceful slur’. Johnson did not apologise, instead saying:  I was slightly taken aback for the government to be criticised over the policy that we have devised to end the deaths at sea in the Channel as

Keir Starmer was clearly keen today to make sure people remembered what is normally a rather pointless PMQs session before an economic statement. The Labour leader did so by using slightly questionable language, calling Boris Johnson ‘half-arsed’. MPs will debate whether or not this was parliamentary language (he couldn’t have called the Prime Minister a ‘stoolpigeon’ or ‘pecksniffian’, so he had clearly chosen his words carefully). His reason for accusing Johnson of this was that he didn’t think the Prime Minister had fully engaged with the case of the 800 sacked P&O ferry workers. The pair had a rather impatient exchange on this matter, with Starmer repeatedly saying Johnson didn’t

When Angela Rayner faces Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions, it is obvious that both sides rather enjoy the exchanges. When she’s up against Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, as she was today, it feels like more of a grudge match. The session naturally centred around Ukraine, but as is Rayner’s habit, it was more political than previous PMQs. Labour’s deputy made her theme the government’s failure to ensure Britain’s oil security and links to Russian oligarchs. Much of her attack was about flaws in the absent Prime Minister’s own character: the first question was whether Johnson’s comments about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe when he was Foreign Secretary had made the situation

Blood streams through Ukraine. Tears run through parliament. At PMQs today, numerous members urged Boris to show more compassion towards Ukraine’s refugees. Poland has already taken 1.2 million. Barely a thousand have been received here, as Boris confirmed, but the number will rise sharply. Leading the pro-refugee campaign was the SNP’s Ian Blackford who seems to represent every region on earth apart from his own constituency. In a venomous speech he charged the home secretary, Priti Patel, with imposing a ‘hostile environment’ on refugees for ‘ideological’ reasons. Well, well. No one could accuse the SNP of embracing xenophobia for political gain. Blackford lambasted the government for ‘putting up barriers and

Prime Minister’s Questions today had a strange tonal disconnect to it. The session began with a standing ovation for the Ukrainian ambassador Vadym Prystaiko, who was watching from the gallery. Normally, clapping is banned in the Commons, but today the Speaker tore up protocol and MPs from across the house (and journalists, who by convention don’t clap anything) stood up to applaud Prystaiko. It was a moving moment. But it was not matched by the tone of Boris Johnson, either in his exchanges with Keir Starmer or indeed in the rest of the session. The Labour leader chose to focus on sanctions and economic crime. He asked why certain oligarchs,

Boris Johnson came under sustained pressure at PMQs today to introduce tougher sanctions against Russia. Both Sir Keir Starmer and Ian Blackford pressed the Prime Minister on the matter, with the Labour leader opening his questions by arguing that given a sovereign country had been invaded, ‘if not now, when’ would the government unleash a full package of sanctions. Starmer repeatedly said the Labour party was supportive of what had been announced so far but that it wanted much more from the government. This included cracking down on the Russian state-backed broadcaster RT, which he said should be prevented from spreading Vladimir Putin’s propaganda around the world. Johnson argued that

Today’s PMQs suggests that some of the immediate heat has gone the partygate crisis, if only temporarily. Sir Keir Starmer did not make all his questions about parties, instead widening out his attacks to Conservative tax policy. The faces of most of his backbenchers froze as he doubled down, saying that Starmer had apologised for what the CPS had done Starmer did though open by complaining about the behaviour of the Prime Minister in Monday’s statement on the Gray report, saying that the leader of the party of Winston Churchill was now repeating the conspiracies of ‘violent fascists to try and score cheap political points’. Curiously, Boris Johnson chose to

Sir Keir Starmer has a weakness, and the Tories have spotted it. His weakness is Sir Lindsay Hoyle. The Speaker likes to interrupt PMQs when noise in the chamber exceeds a threshold known only to him. During Sir Keir’s cross-examination of Boris today, he broke in three times to deliver pompous mini-sermons that might have been scripted by John Bercow. ‘Our constituents are very interested to hear this,’ said Hoyle, having told Sir Keir to sit down. The rowdies were ordered to ‘please leave quietly’. No one left. That should have told him that a game was afoot. He himself pointed out that the shouts and jibes originate from the

Poor Sir Keir Starmer. He’s having a bad pandemic. The Labour leader was absent again at PMQs. His gifted and charismatic deputy, Angela Rayner, got another chance to display her credentials as his replacement. Rayner, with her necklace of white beads, looked like a duchess launching a battleship. She and Boris flirted constantly, which may not be a good thing. Teasingly he said he knew that she coveted Sir Keir’s job. ‘And I wish her well.’ When she got up she leaned so far across the despatch box that she seemed ready to clamber over it When she got up she leaned so far across the despatch box that she

Boris was resurgent at PMQs today. He sprinkled scorn, merriment and mischief in all directions. He even boasted that last night’s Plan B crackdown was a Tory triumph that had not been won with Labour votes. Sir Keir Starmer (who also had a good day) clasped at his hair in incredulity. ‘He’s so far socially distanced from the truth that he actually believes that,’ scoffed the Labour leader. Boris is surrounded by cabinet plotters who are not without their qualities. Liz Truss has nice hair. Rishi Sunak looks like the perfect son-in-law. Priti Patel’s mean streak may win her a few votes. But that doesn’t add up to a leader

The bombshell at bay. That’s how Boris looked at today’s PMQs. Deflated, cornered, winded and lifeless. Gone were the chuckles and the mischievous jests, the punning quips and the poetic asides. He kicked off with a scripted apology that had two objectives: to neutralise public fury and to wrong-foot Sir Keir Starmer. It did neither. Last night, footage emerged of Downing Street staff at a mock Q&A session making jokes about parties at No. 10 during lockdown. ‘I was also furious to see that clip,’ said Boris, as if suggesting that he was angrier than the angriest person in the country. He expressed his sorrow but couched it with lawyerly