That nasal quack. The sticky-up fringe. Drearily predictable evasions – ‘working people… breakfast clubs… £22billion black hole’. Sir Keir Starmer was going through the PMQs motions again, plumply contented with himself, even as the latest inflation figures brought more bad news.
With his gift for stale phraseology he complained that Kemi Badenoch ‘comes here every week and just talks the country down’.
Mrs Badenoch: ‘I’m not talking the country down. I’m talking him down.’ That won a laugh. Kemi has plenty of problems of her own but at least she pops the old booby’s priggish pomposity.
With summer recess imminent, this was the last PMQs until September. It has not been the easiest of first years. Sir Keir, however, was insistent that ‘we’re fixing the country’. How did he define the ‘working people’ who will allegedly be protected from tax rises? Sir Keir: ‘The sort of people who work hard but haven’t necessarily got the savings to buy themselves out of problems.’
If you have savings, you might want to withdraw them from the bank and stick them under the tea cosy. Do so before the autumn Budget.
Noise levels on the Labour benches were reasonably high but the volume was coming from a few lusty Starmerites. Gateshead’s Mark Ferguson had his mouth constantly ajar, lips funnelled like an operatic baritone. He’s a burly lad, Ferguson. Could do a lot of damage to one of those Chinese all-you-can-eat buffets.
A row or two behind him sat two leaner, more delicate cats: former Labour Party lawyer Alex Barros-Curtis (Cardiff W), who is prone to twitches, and Emily Darlington (Lab, Milton Keynes C). Both wore rapt smiles as the PM churned through his scripted, recycled zingers.
Further along the row we had Matt Turmaine (Lab, Watford), beaming moonily. Not an automatic choice for University Challenge, perhaps. Closer to the chamber’s back doors sat two more glinting intellectuals, Perran Moon (Lab, Camborne & Redruth) and Sean Woodcock (Lab, Banbury). How they cackled at Sir Keir’s stodgy repartee. Mr Woodcock actually lifted one buttock off the bench, so electrified was he by our prosaic helmsman.
Sir Keir Starmer was going through the PMQs motions again, plumply contented with himself, even as the latest inflation figures brought more bad news, writes Quentin Letts
Other parts of the Labour benches were less gaseous. This became particularly evident when Sir Desmond Swayne (Con, New Forest W) rasped a precise question about the Hermer-Benn proposal which threatens to leave Northern Ireland veterans liable to prosecution while bringing a compensation windfall to Gerry Adams. The silence from the Government benches was evidence that Lord Hermer commands little esteem among his Commons comrades.
Cabinet members on the front bench did not exactly gleam with enthusiasm. Angela Rayner was a lank, motionless figure. Rachel Reeves forgot to maintain her rictus grin. Call for the Kleenex Mansize! Yvette Cooper and Steve Reed were two carsick spaniels.
Graham Stuart (Con, Beverley & Holderness) made a forced joke about the Labour manifesto, calling it ‘beautifully written, deeply moving and, like that other great blockbuster, Salt Path, a total pack of lies’. Liz Kendall, Work and Pensions Secretary,
cast a sad gaze to the floor. Home Secretary Ms Cooper’s ringed eyes bored into the middle-distance.
Lincoln Jopp (Con, Spelthorne) had a larky question about England’s Test match win. It meant nothing to Sir Keir. Cricket quite foreign to him.
Behind the Speaker’s chair there was no sign of Defence minister Al Carns, who normally stands there. His place was taken by two slender greasers, Jake Richards (Lab, Rother Valley) and Jack Abbott (Lab, Ipswich), adopting shrewd frowns and macho stances. Treasury minister Torsten Bell toddled up to them, blushing. They resisted the urge to gush back at little Torsten.
And at the other end of the joint that strange creature Paul Kohler (Lib Dem, Wimbledon) removed his jacket to betray braces, silver shirt-sleeve garters and a set of keys prominent on his trouser belt.
Mr Kohler dropped low his head. I thought he was bowing to the Speaker. But then he threw his skull backwards. He was just rearranging his floppy fringe.
Vain, self-absorbed, detached. That’s Westminster.
