There aren’t many advantages to being forced out of your job if you are prime minister, but knowing that you will never have to face another PMQs is one clear bonus. Among the many reasons why it is such an ordeal is the fact that, as PM, you get blamed for everything. In part that is because the opposition parties will always be critical, regardless of whether or not that’s fair, but mostly it’s just a facet of leadership.
Today Keir Starmer sounded more fed up about this than usual. As he hit back at his critics, he was more withering and disdainful than usual. And, as a result, better than usual too.
He slapped down Dave Doogan, the SNP leader at Westminster, with ease, forcefully and effectively. (See 12.30pm .) And when Lee Anderson from Reform UK asked a question, Starmer briskly addressed it before devoting most of his answer to a hatchet job on Nigel Farage. (See 12.42pm .)
But it was Kemi Badenoch who seemed to wind Starmer up the most. As expected, she devoted all her questions to the defence investment plan (Dip). Her problem, though, was that while Starmer might be prepared to listen to criticism of his record on defence spending from the chief of the defence staff, or from Lord Robertson, or from the Nato secretary general, he is not minded to accept the same lectures from her party given its own record on this issue.
Starmer rightly accused her of “faux outrage”. In his second response to her, he said:
double quotation mark Their record is cutting spending. My record is raising it to £300bn, and rising.
Their record is cutting frigates by a quarter, cutting minehunters by a half and leaving 47 of 49 defence programmes delayed or over budget. My record is the biggest boost to defence investment since the 1980s.
Their record is missing army recruitment targets every year for 14 years. We’ve given our armed forces the biggest pay rise for 20 years and increased funding by £15bn a year.
double quotation mark What did they actually do? They cut defence - 2.5% down to 2.3% in their 14 long years. And what did they do on welfare? They put the bill up by £88bn. So no lectures from them.
double quotation mark They won’t defend their record because they can’t. They won’t apologise for it because they’d have to admit what we all know is a total failure. They just try to pretend the 14 years they were in power never really happened.
Collectively, all this made an impact. Starmer had a point, and he was making it with punch and passion.
Badenoch was a bit less aggressive than usual, but perhaps she is losing interest. It was interesting to note that, at one point, she started training her fire on Andy Burnham. (See 12.21pm .) He is the opponent who matters to her now.