A battered Keir Starmer addressed Parliament today to explain, or more accurately, refuse to explain, yesterday’s screeching, tarmac burning u-turn. Like a child at a school sport’s day that has twisted his ankle, but bravely completed the three-legged race anyway, Starmer got a stupendous round of pity cheers from the Labour benches. Perhaps the most sportsmanlike schoolchild of all was Rachel Reeves, who was gamely nodding and cheering whilst barely holding back her tears — had she recently got some bad news?
Resident school bully Kemi Badenoch looked positively delighted at all this suffering, stalking up to the despatch box in the manner of Top Cat approaching a particularly delicious bowl of cream. She paused to swifty stuff the member for Rochdale — “toady of the week” — into a locker, before cornering a clench-jawed Starmer. “It’s been a difficult week for the Prime Minister, so let’s start with something simple: can the Prime Minister tell the house how much his welfare bill is going to save?” A full minute of pompous evasion later, and Badenoch is rhetorically shoving Starmer around a playing field with not a teacher in sight to save him. “This is the first Prime Minister in history to propose a bill to save money who ended up with a bill that costs money”.
Several times Starmer desperately tried to turn things around by pointing out the Tories voted against welfare reform. This was a devastating headlock the day before yesterday, when the bill was cutting welfare, but numerous concessions later, and he has made Badenoch’s job very easy indeed.
Not content with roughing up the school prefect, Badenoch starts pointing at individual Labour MPs “Why are you cheering? You voted against the bill! You voted against the bill”, before seizing hold of head girl Rachel Reeves, “She looks absolutely miserable … She is a human shield for his incompetence”. A devastated looking Chancellor gazed imploringly at the Labour leader for rescue, as he was asked if she would remain in post till the next election — and looked in vain. “How awful for the Chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place”, Badenoch spat poisonously.
It was hard to feel too sorry for the pair, who had after all walked through the division lobby twice last month in favour of laws to extinguish the lives of the weakest and most vulnerable. Nor could one spare much of a tear for the squirming of backbench MPs who pontificated about consulting disability rights organisations they were shoving aside days earlier during the assisted dying vote. This is a group of people who could stand to benefit from a taste of victimhood and vulnerability.
This parliament is increasingly an arena for national shame, rather than pride
It’s also easy to forget how close the currently gleeful Badenoch came to stepping on a series of rakes. But for the literally last-minute concessions yesterday, she would have been going into PMQs having to explain why she voted against a bill she believes in, and criticised Reform for voting the same way she was. Anyone wanting to see what a government that emerges purely from the failures of the previous regime looks like need only look to the other side of the chamber.
Indeed, as the numbing blows inflicted on the government started to fade away, observers might be struck by just how weak Parliament as a whole is looking. For all his floundering against Badenoch, Starmer was still able to easily swat aside SNP and Lib Dem attacks, pointing to the failures of SNP governance of the NHS, and the Lib Dems habit of NIMBYism in local government. Many have commented on just how poor a showing parliament made over bioethics last month, and the gutting of the government bill on the floor of parliament only added to the sense of an institution in crisis. This parliament is increasingly an arena for national shame, rather than pride — a political vale of tears.
