Prime Minister’s Questions began with the revelation from Simon Opher, Labour MP for Stroud, that he has been investigating whether comedy could reduce waiting lists. Perhaps laughter really is the best medicine. Puns not pills! A joke a day keeps the doctor away! Ask your GP about getting this sketch on prescription.
The main event of the day was the Spending Review. Originally this was planned as the summit of 11 months of triumphant governing. But on delivery it had a distinctly mixed feel to it. Rachel Reeves began the week with a U-turn on one of her first acts in office: the means-testing of Winter Fuel Payments, intended to show how tough she was, had ended up highlighting the government’s weakness.
Kemi Badenoch’s exchanges with Keir Starmer were as unenlightening as ever. She asked about the ways in which things were going wrong, he replied by talking about ways they had previously gone much wronger.
“He loves talking about Liz Truss,” Badenoch complained, and was greeted with the most almighty cheer from Labour. She tried to regain control. “One minute they said it was right to take the winter fuel payment away, that there might be a run on the pound,” she said. “The next minute, they said it was right to give it back.” Why, she asked, couldn’t the prime minister admit he’d made a mistake?
It was the right question, and Starmer would find his life considerably easier if he followed Badenoch’s advice. But in one respect his life is already fairly easy, because the Conservative leader can’t somehow land the delivery. Perhaps it’s a question of context: it’s very easy to point to someone else’s difficulty dealing with reality, but it sounds less convincing coming from someone so obviously in denial about their own record in government.
Starmer noted that Badenoch had, somewhat unwisely, told a podcast that she was going to improve in the role of Leader of the Opposition. Once again, Badenoch proved she cannot see bait without rising to it. “I get better every week!” she yelled, and I’m ashamed to say that the entire chamber, including the press gallery, fell about. Did the Tories join in? I wish I could tell you, but I was laughing too hard to see. The Speaker had to intervene, accusing the Labour benches of shouting her down, but honestly, it was the kind of spontaneous laughter that, if it couldn’t quite cure cancer, would certainly clear a stiff cold.
“Every week I come here to tell him the truth!” Badenoch declared. If you can win an election through the power of positive thinking alone, then she’s got this in the bag. Her finger trembling, she pointed at Reeves. “The truth is, she has made bad choices.”
Starmer will have had a longer reply prepared, but he didn’t bother with it. “The wrong choice they made was making her Leader of the Opposition,” he said, an answer that was rather in the “Your mum!” school of debate, but had the advantage of articulating a deep concern on the Conservative benches.
The Tories did rather better at heckling Reeves. After a year of Labour, she began, “we are starting to see the results.” They chuckled heartily at that. The Treasury had been going through the numbers, she went on, “looking at the assets and the liabilities”. At this point a Conservative shouted that he’d spotted one of these at the despatch box.
But it quickly became clear that Reeves wasn’t that bothered about the Tory benches. Her focus instead was on five MPs who sit high up on the far opposition bench, next to the DUP. From the first mention of Nigel Farage’s admiration for Liz Truss, Reeves was delivering a speech aimed entirely at Reform.
One of the innovations of Reform’s broadcast arm, GB News, is to give weather reports for a different map of Britain. Instead of using the big population centres that the elitist BBC uses, it namechecks the smaller places nearby, tapping into the deep hatred that every town feels for the city that overshadows it. Reeves adopted a similar approach in her speech. Stevenage, Barrow, Derby, Blackpool, Preston and Swindon all popped up in her tour of the nation’s neglected spots. Enfield, Leigh and Weymouth. Rugby, Bradford and Doncaster. “For 14 years, the Conservatives failed the people of Wales!” she declared. Now Labour was going to take on the job.
There were billions here for houses, and billions there for nuclear fusion. The real question of course is where the billions aren’t going. Reeves said she was proud of our “world class” universities, but if there’s money to save the ones that are on the brink of bankruptcy, she forgot to mention it.
Labour MPs liked the money, but looked somewhat doubtful for much of the speech. Like Badenoch, she is hamstrung by context. When she says she knows what she’s doing, they no longer quite believe her.
Mel Stride, who continues to surprise every time you remember that he’s the Shadow Chancellor, had the hellish job to replying. The Treasury had, helpfully, provided him with an advance copy of Reeves’s statement, and a table of the key spending decisions. For security reasons, they’d blacked out everything that might be market sensitive. As Reeves spoke, he turned over page after entirely redacted page, before tossing them aside.
He too has yet to work out how to deal with his party’s record. It turns out the Conservativeshad plans to deliver huge increases in defence spending, and to cut the welfare bill and balance the books. Sadly, their 14 years in office ran out just before they had a chance to implement them.
Still, he managed to cheer up the Labour benches. When he accused them of being “disillusioned”, they all cheerfully pointed at the Tories. He soldiered on, declaring that businesses were “fleeing in their droves”. With epic comic timing, Conservative MP Jack Rankin, sat behind directly him, chose this moment to stand up and walk out. Labour MPs fell about in delight. Their political worries may be far from over, but all this laughter must be doing wonders for their health.
