Pmqs

Sir Keir was defeated by his own strategy at PMQs

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

Isabel Hardman

Starmer’s flip-flopping came back to haunt him at PMQs

Prime Minister’s Questions today wasn’t a particularly easy session for either man taking the main exchanges. For Boris Johnson, it was a struggle to answer what Sir Keir Starmer referred to as a ‘simple question that goes to the heart of this issue’: if it’s not advisable for people to travel to amber list countries unless absolutely necessary, is it now easier for them to do so?  Johnson repeatedly stressed that the government has been clear on travel restrictions, quarantine measures and penalties for failing to observe these rules. But a simple rule in politics is that if you’re having to insist you’ve been clear, then your messages are as

Boris Johnson’s Krakatoa moment

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

Isabel Hardman

Boris was rattled at PMQs

Boris Johnson did not have a good Prime Minister’s Questions. It was never going to be a comfortable session, given the multiple rows about the funding of the Downing Street flat revamp and his reported comments about letting bodies ‘pile up’. But the way the Prime Minister approached it ensured both that the story will keep running and that he betrayed quite how annoyed he is by it. It is little use trying, as Johnson repeatedly did, to argue that the British people are not interested in the line of questioning that Sir Keir Starmer was pursuing. For one thing, there is nothing like a politician claiming that something is

Boris’s mask slipped at PMQs

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

Starmer has ‘dodgy Dave’ to thank for his best ever PMQs

‘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

Keir Starmer morphed into Ed Miliband at PMQs

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

PMQs was an unseemly scrap

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

Isabel Hardman

Starmer ends up on the back foot at PMQs

Prime Minister’s Questions is usually a session where the PM defends his handling of one issue or another, under attack from the leader of the Opposition. But today’s session involved an attempt by Sir Keir Starmer to defend his approach to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Labour knows it has an exposed flank on this because the legislation contains such a large mix of different policies, and because it adopted its position of opposing the Bill rather late on. The Labour leader devoted his questions to asking Johnson about how the government would respond to the aftermath of the murder of Sarah Everard, arguing that ‘sometimes a tragedy

Keir Starmer’s failed attempt at PMQs comedy

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

James Forsyth

Starmer made life difficult for Boris at PMQs

Keir Starmer had his most effective parliamentary outing in some time today. The Labour leader not only picked the right topic, nurses pay, but asked short, pithy questions which made it harder for Boris Johnson to change the subject.  Starmer landed a few blows with some cheap but effective comparisons of what nurses were getting compared to other bits of government spending. With elections coming in two months’ time, Labour will be happy to run with this issue. The only protection that the Tories have on it is to say that the independent pay review body will, ultimately, make a recommendation. Starmer’s performance could, though, have been even more effective.

Steerpike

Watch: Boris hits back over Brussels vaccine jabs

Britain has sunk into a vicious bout of ‘vaccine nationalism’ — that is, at least, according to European Council president Charles Michel who made the bizarre claims last night.  Those in Westminster have been less than impressed by the Eurocrat’s bold claims that the UK is undermining the bloc’s vaccine plans, with Dominic Raab ordering EU officials to explain themselves to the Foreign Office. Responding to Michel earlier today, Boris Johnson told PMQs: ‘Let me be clear we have not blocked the export of a single Covid-19 vaccine, or vaccine components.’ Strong words by a clearly irritated PM. He told the Commons that he ‘opposes vaccine nationalism in all its forms’ — Mr S

Boris’s aid cuts problem isn’t going away

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

Why is Keir Starmer so bad at PMQs?

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

James Forsyth

PMQs: Boris sidesteps Starmer’s bait

Keir Starmer tried to use today’s PMQs to set up some future attack lines. First, he again tried to drive a wedge between Boris Johnson and the Covid Recovery Group, asking him to criticise the statements that members of it have made denouncing the lockdown easing plan.  Unsurprisingly, Johnson didn’t take the bait. But if the data continues to surprise for the better, these MPs will become more vocal in calling for a faster end to restrictions. Second, Starmer pressed Johnson to rule out tax rises for families or businesses — an attempt to lay down a marker before next week’s Budget where Rishi Sunak is predicted to announce an

Could lockdown lift sooner?

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

Steerpike

Boris and Keir’s Commons argy bargy

At PMQs today, Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer clashed over the latter’s support in the past for the European Medicines Agency – which as Mr S pointed out, appeared to involve Keir Starmer potentially misleading the House of Commons. It now sounds though like the pair’s argument continued outside the Chamber. The Sun reports that Sir Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson ended up having a dust up in the ‘aye’ lobby at the end of the session. It appears that Starmer confronted the PM about the medicines row, which led to a ‘heated exchange’. According to one account, a Labour MP had to pull Starmer away from the row –

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson had an easy ride at PMQs

Boris Johnson had a pretty easy ride at Prime Minister’s Questions today, despite Keir Starmer raising two policy problems that the government is really struggling to stay on top of. The Labour leader asked his first three questions on the quarantine policy, pushing Johnson for much tougher rules, and then turned to the cladding scandal. As we have repeatedly covered on Coffee House, the latter is a huge consumer crisis that is leaving thousands of people trapped in homes they cannot sell or with bills for remedial works to remove dangerous cladding reaching into the tens of thousands of pounds. Starmer channelled Jeremy Corbyn and quoted some of those affected.

Steerpike

Keir Starmer’s misleading European Medicines Agency remarks

Oh dear. Sir Keir Starmer was in a particularly prickly mood this afternoon, as he faced Boris Johnson at PMQs, and the pair clashed over border closures. But the Labour leader appeared most riled when the Prime Minister pointed out that Starmer had fought for Britain to stay in the European Medicines Agency – a move that could have potentially slowed our vaccine roll-out. An indignant Starmer suggested that the PM’s claim was ‘complete nonsense’ and added that: ‘The Prime Minister knows I’ve never said that, from this Despatch box or anywhere else, but the truth escapes him.’ A strong rebuke. Mr S is curious though, was it then a different