Keir’s performance in PMQs panto sets bar low enough for Kemi to stay as Tory leader | John Crace
KWith just over a week to go until the Christmas break, the House of Commons is feeling festive. Demob is happy. Moments into the year’s penultimate prime minister’s questions, with MPs from both parties shouting and cheering, the speaker interrupted his speech to say: “We don’t need panto auditions anymore.” The natural response to this was: “Ooh yes we do.” Because that’s what PMQs are all about at the best of times. For some, it’s a feel-good experience. Bad experience for others. Noise without substance.
No one embraces the spirit of panto quite like Kemi Badenoch. Kemi realized the bar was quite low for him to remain Conservative Party leader. All he has to do is do a little better than Keir Starmer at the PMQs. This turns out to be much less difficult than he imagined. Sometimes just standing is enough.
While doing well in the PMQs won’t change the polls (the Conservatives still trail Labor) it does wonders for backbencher morale. And those are the men and women who keep it in a job. If you had suggested six months ago that Kemi could outlast Keir, there would have been great odds. But now he has a chance to become the favourite. He is still unlikely to become leader of the Conservative Party at the next election, but that is a long shot. And Kemi isn’t that bothered. He is happy to invest everything he can win. For almost the first time in his life, his self-confidence was not completely misplaced.
We also thank Kemi’s caregivers. Somehow they managed to distract him from browsing far-right conspiracy theories on the dark web late at night. Instead, they instructed us to try to keep things simple at PMQs. Be sure to adopt the adorable Cinders panto repartee if you need to. But play the questioning directly. “How are things going?” Stick to the basics of the question. Because the truth is that most people think the answer is “badly approaching a terrible point.” There is only so long a prime minister can continue to blame the other party. People expected things to change noticeably by now.
So that’s what Kemi did. He assessed Starmer as a caretaker leader several times and then moved on, making haphazard choices in areas where Labor was weak: health, education, policing and energy. The job is done. This was politics 101 for any opposition leader. Keir could only sound defensive in response. Try to imply that Kemi’s job is also in jeopardy when everyone knows the leadership change chatter is her backbenchers. Cabinet ministers are waiting for the perfect moment to act. The country doesn’t really care if Kemi comes or not. This is his blessing and his curse.
Starmer could only hope that the damage could be limited. Some days you win, some days you lose. This was always going to be one of the last days. Right now Keir is living his worst life. Deep-rooted problems in the economy and his own party turning against him. There’s nothing to do but adopt full survival mode and hope for a break soon. As for these PMQs, they will soon become yesterday’s social media fodder. The Westminster bubble was the only one who cared, and they would soon move on to the next crisis.
However, Keir did not escape unscathed. It wasn’t Kemi who caused the truly painful wounds, though. The person who immediately interrupted Starmer was the very polite Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader who never resorted to panto in the hall. Kemi couldn’t come close to Donald Trump’s last words on Europe – he was too focused on staying close to the far right in the crowd – but Davey could. And he did. Why the silence about the US’s new security strategy? Did the Prime Minister appreciate the irony of Agent Orange talking about Europe trampling on democratic principles? Do you have any comments on the “erasure of civilization”?
Nothing. Starmer did not dare to say a word against the US president. I couldn’t believe that everyone who told her that Donald was unstable and his support couldn’t be counted on was right. I couldn’t protect Sadiq Khan from Trump’s outlandish racism. I would prefer to say nothing and have the Russians believe that Europe is in trouble.
Davey continued to ask about closer economic relations with the EU. If Keir couldn’t commit, Ed highly doubted the Prime Minister would still be standing at the delivery box this time next year. What about Ed? He could take words like that from Kemi any day of the week. He calls on him to resign almost every day. Sometimes twice in the same day for different things. Keir often feels unsure whether he should resign or resign again. But hearing it from Gentleman Ed was unbearable. More out of sadness than anger.
Starmer wasn’t the only one having a bad day. Rachel Reeves was forced to confront her own ordeal during a 90-minute appearance before the Treasury select committee to answer questions about the budget. The main focus was on process. How come so much of the budget was leaked in advance? In fact, all of them, even the parts that were planned and then abandoned. It was as if the entire country was on a Zoom call with Starmer and Reeves in the build-up.
Rachel was horrified by all these leaks. No one was more terrified than him. It turns out that there are significant differences between the leaks and the briefings. The briefings were permitted leaks. The leaks were unauthorized leaks. Even though it was all so long ago, he couldn’t remember which parts were leaks and which parts were briefings. He would therefore launch an investigation to investigate which leaks he leaked and which he informed. Confused? She was. However, the investigation would run parallel to Keir’s investigation into what he had leaked to the media about the leadership battle leaks.
Luckily for Rachel, the interrogation got bigger. “Even if you couldn’t measure it, it was there,” he said. It was his chance to achieve a budget that was hit hard by both his left-wing supporters and the financial markets, but was trashed by just about everyone else. What were the chances?
