Pmqs

Covid changes its identity more often than Grant Shapps. The latest strain emerged with the appealingly exotic name ‘Indian’. Now it’s been given a more military-sounding tag, ‘the Delta variant.’ Today’s PMQs featured a tussle over the date on which this dangerous mutant sneaked through the UK’s borders. Sir Keir Starmer waved a file of papers at Boris. ‘It’s all here in the transcript,’ he said and he accused the PM of waiting too long to slap a ‘red list’ notice on India.  For once, Sir Keir had his timelines in a twist. Boris flourished a counter-file at the opposition leader. It was written, said the PM, by the general

What is Prime Ministers’ Questions? Is it a simple contest of ideas? Or is it a judicial roasting in which a lone defendant, governed by strict rules, must face an army of malign inquisitors? Boris thinks it’s an open debate about policy. Speaker Hoyle sees it as a court-hearing over which he presides as judge and procedural expert. Today they clashed. It began with Sir Keir Starmer blowing holes in Boris’s botched catch-up plan for schools. A government wonk, Sir Kevan Collins, had ordered huge sums to be lavished on the programme but the Treasury declined. Boris agreed with the Treasury. And Sir Kevan flounced off into obscurity leaving a

The great thing about being trashed in the polls is that the tiniest improvement looks like a triumphant comeback. At PMQs the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, needed to do some minor damage to Boris’s armour. The teeniest dent could be spun as a glorious revival. But Sir Keir was defeated by his own strategy. He attacked the government’s red-amber-green system of travel restrictions. This metaphorical tricolour is easy to interpret: amber-list countries are safe to travel to except when they’re dangerous. And amber-list countries are dangerous to travel to except when they’re safe. It’s the legal equivalent of an ‘amber shopping day,’ when thieves can operate with impunity. Sir

He blew his stack. His mop almost came loose from his scalp. He wasn’t just jabbing his forefinger and tossing his arms around, he was throwing combinations and swinging at punch-bags. He almost did the Ali shuffle. At PMQs Boris delivered an amazingly combative performance. Last week he smouldered like Etna. This week the summit exploded. This was Krakatoa. Sir Keir arrived, with his starched quiff and his icy smirk, hoping to undo the Prime Minister by stealth. He raised the notorious October quote when Boris is alleged to have said that ‘bodies piled high’ would be preferable to a renewed lockdown. Did he say that? ‘No,’ Boris replied. ‘Lockdowns

Oh dear. Those texts. A bit awkward isn’t it? At PMQs, Sir Keir quizzed Boris about the exchanges between James Dyson and the PM which have been leaked by a saboteur. Boris was rattled. The texts reveal a side of his nature that he wants kept secret. The smug and rather puerile grandee luxuriating in his power and status. Look at me. Marvel at my cleverness. Watch as I solve your problems with my fingertips. See how ministers leap at my command. This will permanently damage a man who likes to pose as the people’s servant, toiling night and day to restore the fortunes of a once mighty kingdom. Sir

‘Keir today, gone tomorrow.’ The whisper before Easter was that Labour’s troubled leader might not survive until the next election but the spectre of Tory sleaze – which felled John Major’s government – has come to the rescue. Sir Keir started PMQs by alluding to David Cameron’s freelance activities for Greensill Capital. ‘Are the current lobbying rules fit for purpose?’ he asked. Boris tried the ‘nothing to see here’ approach. He wants to smother the controversy by appointing a legal sleuth with a spectacularly dull name, Nigel Boardman, whose findings will be delivered in June. So for the next two months the PM can happily refer every question to ‘the

Sir Keir Starmer will want to forget today’s PMQs. And fast. The Labour leader began with a strategic error. Instead of hounding the Prime Minister on a single issue he chose three unrelated topics: Covid, army numbers and steel production. Typical Sir Keir. Why use effective tactics when useless ones are available? To be fair, he had a trump card up his sleeve. The Tory manifesto in 2019 specifically ruled out cuts to the size of the military. And in a newspaper interview, Boris said that the number of 82,000 personnel would be maintained. But 10,000 are about to go. So the PM fibbed. The game was up. And what

It’s bizarre to see political enemies laying claim to the purest of motives when they’re fighting like dogs to extract political advantage from the week’s hottest issue. At PMQs were treated to the unseemly spectacle of party leaders using the appalling death of Sarah Everard for personal gain. Sir Keir Starmer called it, ‘a tragedy so shocking it demands justice and change’. And he called on his opponent to ‘collectively rise to this moment.’ Boris was caught off-guard. Pre-session he’d crammed his head with stats about nurses’ pay and soaring vaccination rates. Suddenly had to talk about sexual violence. He scoured his mental archive for a useful fact or figure

A glimpse of normality returned to PMQs today. For once the pandemic didn’t dominate. And Sir Keir tried a new tactic. He hammered Boris on a single issue. Nurse’s pay. Finally he’s realised that he should look for a nasty bruise and punch it again and again. Boris had memorised a counter-attack which bristled with impressive statistics. Starting salaries for nurses have increased by 12.8 per cent in the last three years. Students can avail of two types of bursaries worth either £3k or £5k. An extra 10,600 nurses are already on the wards. ‘And in one year alone there are another 49,000 people working in our NHS.’ Sir Keir

Sir Keir Starmer will have spent far more time preparing his response to today’s Budget which comes after Prime Minister’s Questions, but he did also manage to highlight a problem that isn’t going away for the government in his questions to Boris Johnson. The Labour leader chose to focus his stint on Yemen, criticising the British government’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, and the decision to cut international aid money to the war-torn country. Johnson insisted that ‘when it comes to the people of Yemen, we continue to step up to the plate’. The most instructive question was on whether MPs will get a vote on the cuts to aid. Starmer

Sir Keir is having a wobble. That’s obvious. The Labour leader holds an equestrian title, so he naturally feels at home on his high horse. Today at PMQs he loftily commanded Boris not to raise taxes in the budget. That was hilarious. A Labour leader begging a Tory Prime Minister not to implement Labour policy. If Sir Keir had produced a viola from his trousers and played ‘Waltzing Matilda’ he couldn’t have looked more ridiculous. Boris was so stunned that he could barely speak. ‘Well, I don’t know about you Mr Speaker,’ he bumbled. Then he pointed out that in 2019 Sir Keir had ‘stood on a manifesto to put

Wednesday’s very upbeat Downing Street coronavirus briefing underlined the optimism that Boris Johnson feels about the way the Covid crisis could work out for him. The Prime Minister was celebrating the UK passing the ten million mark for the number of people who have received their first dose of the vaccine, and thanked the NHS for the programme, which he described as ‘the most colossal in the history of our National Health Service’. He also very pointedly thanked the Vaccine Taskforce, which the Prime Minister sees as another vindication of his approach to the pandemic. For Johnson, the first part of the coronavirus crisis was bruising and the government made