To the House of Commons, which turned out to be an episode of the long-running Radio 4 game where panellists have to get from whatever question they’re asked to a series of predefined talking points. Welcome to Just a Prime Minister!
In the hot seat was Keir Starmer, who would win a point for every mention of Kemi Badenoch’s ever-changing position on Iran, which is currently that the UK should not be involved in the US-led war, but should be bombing the country. No, I don’t know what that means, either. Perhaps Badenoch just likes the idea of fighting her own private wars. Temperamentally, it would be a good fit.
The first question, from Labour’s Marie Tidball, was a gentle one about the cost of heating oil. Could the prime minister get from rising oil prices to the war in Iran? Of course he could.
“Anyone who advocated for the UK to rush headlong into the offensive without a clear picture of what it meant for our forces,” Starmer said, “or without thinking through the economic impact for families, should stand up and apologise.”
It was a nicely scripted gag, because the next thing that happened was Badenoch standing up. Her role in Just a Prime Minister is to ask about anything other than the conflagration that threatens to push us into recession. Fortunately, she had a plausible alternative: Starmer’s woeful decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. Her question was a simple one: had the prime minister spoken to Mandelson about Jeffrey Epstein before appointing him?
It was the ideal line for this game, because we all know the answer, that Starmer had been weirdly uncurious about the entire business, and indeed doesn’t seem to have spoken to the candidate at all.
Tricky. How would Starmer get from Mandelson to Iran? He didn’t answer her question, but instead went for the general issue of the ambassador’s appointment. “It was my mistake,” he said, “and I have apologised for it.” And then, as nimbly as a player of Mornington Crescent who sees a chance to switch to the Northern Line, he went on. “She should follow suit and apologise for a gross error of judgement in calling for the UK to join the war in Iran without thinking through the consequences.” Bing! That’s a point!
Badenoch pointed out that he hadn’t answered, and asked again. How would the prime minister get to his goal this time? “Now, obviously this is a question of my judgement,” he said, almost as though he’d hoped she would mention that subject, “but what about her judgement?” Can you guess what he said next? Bing!
The Tory leader ploughed on. Behind her, Tory MPs were enjoying the sight of their leader making the prime minister squirm. They get few pleasures these days, so we shouldn’t begrudge them this one. She had another good question. Starmer had previously said he hired Mandelson because he’d believed the ambassador’s lies. “If the prime minister didn’t speak to him, how can he say he lied to him?”
It was a fair point. The Mandelson affair is exposing how incredibly unengaged Starmer is in the things his government does. We’ve had lazy prime ministers before, we’ve had greedy ones, weak ones, autocratic ones and stupid ones. Sometimes all at once. Is this the first one who simply isn’t there? Present, as the saying goes, but not involved.
Starmer decided to go for the bonus round. “She asked me about process and judgement on appointments,” he said (she hadn’t). “She appointed the shadow justice secretary.” He pointed down the bench to Nick Timothy, a Tory MP who last night tweeted his objection to Muslims, including the London Mayor, praying in Trafalgar Square as part of Ramadan. “If he were on my team, he would be gone.”
Timothy was, Badenoch said, standing up for “British values”. Which British values these might be wasn’t explained. But then the advantage of your country having been around for centuries is that it has, over that time, adopted quite a lot of different values. Timothy certainly represents a well-worn strain of some of them.
On Wednesday morning, the new Conservative position on Islam was endorsed by Tommy Robinson. That would have given previous Tory leaders pause for thought, but not Badenoch. Afterwards her spokesman struggled to explain why public prayer is fine when Christians and Jews do it, but bad when Muslims do it. Timothy has said that the problem is that Islam makes exclusive claims to truth. It’s a damning indictment of the Church of England that he doesn’t think Christianity does the same.
There were more exchanges, but you’ve got the picture. By the end, the prime minister was ignoring the questions completely, doggedly repeating his attack lines like a low-energy Boris Johnson. Tory MPs complained that this was outside the rules but Lindsay Hoyle, the chamber’s answer to Nicholas Parsons, replied that he wasn’t responsible for the answers.
Who won? Like any Radio 4 panel game, no one can remember. That’s the joy of Just a Prime Minister. Next week, Nigel Farage will be asked to sing Money, Money, Money to the tune of The Horst Wessel Song.
