James Heale

Whisper it, but there was some rather good lines amid the dross of today's PMQs. 'Mr Speaker, I asked the Prime Minister what he believes in', jibed Kemi Badenoch at one point. 'He had to look in his folder to find out the answer.' The Speaker responded in kind. 'Please', he said, during one of Keir Starmer's lengthier evasions, 'Let's listen to the answer even if you don't believe you're getting one.' But it was one word, repeated more than a dozen times, which emerged from today's session: chaos. Badenoch hit the PM with it at every chance, pointing to the winter fuel and two-child benefit U-turns as proof of the 'chaos, chaos, chaos' in which, she said, this government is now embroiled.

The Prime Minister has been up in Scotland this morning, ahead of the full publication of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) at 3.30 p.m. today. It will set out the UK’s defence spending priorities for the next ten years, including plans to build up to 12 new nuclear-powered attack submarines and spend £15 billion on the warhead programme. In a speech, Starmer touted the document as a ‘a blueprint to make Britain safer and stronger, a battle-ready, bomber-clad nation with the strongest alliances and the most advanced capabilities.’ Three changes will come from this review, he said. The first, a move to ‘war-fighting readiness’. The second: an additional focus on ensuring that everything this government does is to add to Nato’s strength.

Amid talk of a summer reshuffle, I recently asked a senior member of the Labour party if he thought the Attorney-General was likely for the chop. He paused and reflected. 'No', he eventually replied. 'But he's going the right way about it.' Similar sentiments will no doubt be expressed in Downing Street today as they pore over the morning papers. 'Law chief in Nazi jibe at Tories and Reform', screams the splash headline of today's Times: Richard Hermer KC has done it again. Hermer showed a naivety of how his remarks would be interpreted The cause of the headline is a speech which Hermer made to the RUSI think tank yesterday on the government's commitment to international law.

What, if anything, can stop Nigel Farage? That’s the question many in Westminster are asking as they try to reconcile themselves to the rise of Reform UK. The party has soared to 30 per cent in the polls – and is now seeking further gains. Farage’s speech this morning was his attempt to make hay from Labour’s woes on welfare. Reform, he pledged, would scrap both the winter fuel cut and the two-child benefit cap, while introducing a new tax allowance to reward married couples. It was all part of Farage’s pitch to frame himself as the defender of the welfare state, besieged by cuts at home and invaders from abroad. He argues that, currently, social services are a perverse inversion, offering little to British voters while generously subsidising foreign citizens.

It has not been an enjoyable bank holiday weekend for Kemi Badenoch. The Sunday Times contained not one, but two, critical stories of the Tory leader. The first was about her choice of car in government; the second about a recent shadow cabinet meeting at which her MPs were instructed on 'management theory and values.' Labour opponents outside the party were quick to leap on the first story; Tory critics are circulating the second as proof of her ineffectiveness. Badenoch had one of the prized slots on the Sunday morning round to answer back. On GB News, Camilla Tominey credited her guest for shouldering the burden on media commitments – unlike other members of the Tory frontbench. But it was on Sky that Badenoch came somewhat unstuck.