To have one Labour peer with a close association to a child sex offender may be regarded as a misfortune: to have two looks like carelessness. This was never going to be an easy prime minister’s question for Keir Starmer.
The opposition was spoilt for choice. The peers in question – Peter Mandelson and Matthew Doyle – as well as the topics of Morgan McSweeney, Tim Allan, Wes Streeting … These were just some of the crisis points of the past seven days. Even by the political psychodramas of the past 10 years, it’s fair to say Starmer has had the week from hell. Just one damn thing after another.
But even the losers get lucky some time. Starmer knew he was in for a rough half hour. You could see it in the anxious glances he flicked towards the opposition benches. You could hear it in the forced cheers from his own MPs. The weary opening gag about having had more ministerial meetings than usual this week.
And yet it wasn’t the bloodbath Keir and his colleagues had anticipated. Compared with last week’s PMQs disaster, this was a breeze. A few minor flesh wounds at most.
You could sense a whispered thank you from Starmer to his opposite number. When he feels the whole world is against him, he is lucky to find himself up against Kemi Badenoch. A woman who believes she is dictating world events. You could put her on a fairground ride and she would still think she was in control of where she was going.
Her latest delusion is that she has masterminded the recent crises inside No 10. Without her interventions, none of us would be any the wiser about Mandelson’s links to Jeffrey Epstein. Thanks to her, McSweeney resigned and Starmer found his leadership under threat.
It hasn’t yet dawned on her that all she is doing is repeating information that had already been published in a newspaper over a year ago. Or maybe she thinks she makes the journalists write the stories.
Last week Kemi had kept her delusions simple. Didn’t try to do more than ask the same questions that were on everyone else’s minds. But this week, she couldn’t resist overdoing things a bit. Trying to embellish her sentences with a flourish.
It all fell a bit flat. That isn’t to say that Starmer wasn’t on the back foot for some of the exchanges, but he wasn’t as discomfited as he might have been. You could feel the disappointment from Kemi’s backbenchers. They had been hoping for more.
Starmer even got the better of the first two questions as Badenoch went for the drop intro. How come he had turned on his staff, she asked. “I accepted responsibility,” Keir replied. Apparently sacking your most trusted and loyal adviser is a sign of accepting responsibility. Go figure. He then bigged up McSweeney’s achievements in producing a Labour landslide and the smallest Tory party in decades. And what had Kemi done? She had made her own party even smaller.
Kemi visibly winced. Struggling for a reply. Keir doubled down by reminding her that she had publicly backed colleagues only days before they had defected. Who was next?
Things then got a bit tougher for the prime minister as Kemi finally got round to mentioning Doyle, Starmer’s former director of communications who had been given a peerage despite his friendship with a man who was convicted of possessing indecent images of children.
This is a terrible look for Labour. Claiming that Doyle “did not give a full account” of the extent of his friendship doesn’t really cut it. Not only was the relevant information in the public domain, the onus was on Starmer to ensure he was making the right call. Nor was it too late to cancel the peerage when he did find out. At best, Keir looked a bit dopey with lousy judgment; at worst, it felt as if he was running a boy’s club with no consideration of the victims.
Even though he had no real answers to Kemi’s questions, Starmer still came out fighting. For days now, the prime minister’s supporters have been saying that we are now going to see “the real Keir” after the recent leadership crisis.
Only on Tuesday, Ed Miliband had said that the Keir he knew was “passionate, bold and committed to fighting inequality”. It was a pity he had kept that side of himself hidden from the rest of us.
Now was our first chance to see The Real Keir in action. And it turns out that this Keir is pretty pissed off with life. Reckons he has been dealt a duff hand over the past few weeks. That many of his colleagues are less than grateful for all he has done for them. That he is the one true leader who delivered a landslide. He was not going to roll over for anyone. He was going to give as good as he got.
Starting with Kemi. The leader of the opposition was rather taken aback. She is used to being the feisty one. The one who dishes it out. Now she was on the receiving end. She had expected Starmer to be more defensive. Apologetic, even.
Keir might not have had a lot to say about Doyle but he had plenty to say about all the Tory sleaze over the years and the deadbeat governments we’d had to endure. He made it sound as if there was some kind of competition going on. His MPs seemed to like it, though. This wasn’t the dismantling of their leader they had feared. Maybe the danger was over for now.
Ed Davey landed more telling blows on Starmer over Doyle, simply by sounding more normal. More reasonable. But Keir also gave him the same hairdryer treatment. Keir was angry and he wasn’t going to put up with it any more …
Still, there was time for nearly everyone to have a good laugh at the end. Ayoub Khan – a Birmingham MP – talked of the rubbish right under his nose. He was standing right behind the Reform cohort. Richard Tice joined in the laughter but Nigel Farage remained stony-faced. He’s more thin-skinned than he lets on. Recess can’t come a moment too soon for everyone.
