It feels like bullying to just keep saying that Kemi Badenoch is bad at Prime Minister’s Questions, so before I tell you how bad Kemi Badenoch is at Prime Minister’s Questions — and you really should be in no doubt that “bad at Prime Minister’s Questions” is what Kemi Badenoch is — let’s point out something that she’s doing well (spoiler: it’s not Prime Minister’s Questions).
Her new description of Keir Starmer — “a lawyer, not a leader” — is a decent characterisation of his weaknesses. It’s not entirely fair — he has sometimes shown leadership, which is why his predecessor as Labour leader is no longer a Labour MP — but six months in, his government is beset by plenty of problems that someone a little more politically astute would have dodged.
More or less any of these issues would have been good subjects for the leader of the opposition to ask him about on Wednesday. Instead, the Tory leader took an approach that is best explained by imagining that, at about half past 11, she had realised that it wasn’t Tuesday and shouted “quick, what’s in the paper?”
Badenoch’s first question was about the Telegraph’s revelation that a family of Palestinians had successfully found refuge in the UK using a visa application intended for Ukrainians. “Are the government planning to appeal on any points of law,” she asked, “and, if so, which ones?” Which sounded like a good question of detail. Perhaps, we thought, her team had looked into the case and dug something up.
Well, we thought that until we heard Starmer’s response. “I do not agree with the decision,” he said. He went further. “She’s right: it is the wrong decision.” Win for Badenoch, and on the first question! Until we got to his next sentence. “She hasn’t quite done her homework,” he went on. The ruling had come under the last government. This government, he went on, was looking at changing the law to deal with the issue.
Now, to be fair to Badenoch, the Telegraph story didn’t reveal the date of the case. To be very slightly less fair to Badenoch, a more careful person, who had been in the Cabinet seven months earlier, might have noted the article’s lack of a date and wondered if there was a way that asking about this might, to use Parliamentary jargon, come back and bite her on the arse.
Nevertheless, she persisted. Would Starmer commit to changing the law if necessary? “I have already said that,” he replied. And he had, at some length. Was it possible she hadn’t noticed?
“If the prime minister was on top of his brief, perhaps he would be able to answer some questions,” Badenoch commented. She asked again: would he agree to change the law? At this point my notes become a little vague, because I’d put my pen down as I tried to work out what was going on. Was it possible that Badenoch was hearing different replies from me?
Starmer, on the other hand, thought he knew what was going on: “Her script does not allow her to listen to the answer. She asked me if we are going to change the law and close the loophole in question one. I said yes. She asked me again in question two, and I said yes. She asked me again in question three. It is still yes.”
Labour MPs cheered. Tory MPs looked baffled. The prime minister was agreeing with their leader and she had somehow contrived to make it look like a defeat.
Still, Badenoch had another card up her sleeve: the front page of the Daily Mail. “The government are now recruiting a new chief inspector of borders, who lives in Finland and wants to work from home. This is not serious. Why should the British public put up with it?” Bam! Ka-pow! Dodge that, lawyer boy! Chris Philp, next to her, looked outraged. What kind of shower of idiots would allow a UK official to work from Finland?
It was awful. Painful. And mysterious
Starmer, as it turned out, had an answer to that: “The individual in question was appointed in 2019 by the last government. He then worked for five years from Finland. We have changed that, and he will now be working from the United Kingdom full time.” Labour MPs were laughing. Tory MPs stared intently at their phones.
It was awful. Painful. And mysterious: PMQs is the only fixed event in a leader of opposition’s week. Was it really possible that Badenoch’s research for it hadn’t extended as far as the sixth paragraph of the story she was asking about? In fairness, that would have required her to turn to page two.
With her questions finished, one of her MPs tried to salvage something. David Reed asked about the Chagos Islands. “One of his own MPs thinks it is the worst thing that the Labour party has ever done!” he said, in a damning indictment of the historical knowledge of our political class. Why was Starmer still backing it?
Last week, the prime minister had revealed that Badenoch had yet to take up the offer of a security briefing on the Chagos situation. Well. “She still has not taken me up on the offer of that briefing,” he said. Badenoch waved her arms and shouted something that was sadly inaudible. Perhaps she was explaining that the dog had eaten her invitation. “It is extraordinary,” Starmer went on, “that someone who wants to be prime minister does not want to know the facts.”
Facts? Where Kemi is going, she doesn’t need facts.
