PMQs review: Keir Starmer actually makes a good joke shock

Starmer was beginning the session by congratulating those MPs who had run the London and Manchester marathons at the weekend (after he’d briefly informed the House we’d bombed Yemen overnight, but, y’know).

“In particular, I congratulate the honourable member for Gordon and Buchan (Conservative Harriet Cross) on running the fastest time of any female MP,” he said. “Of course, I also congratulate the shadow justice secretary, who I am reliably informed is still running.”

At this, the House creased up, not least Cross herself. Admittedly, this gag may not have landed so well at London’s Comedy Store on a Saturday night, given that it requires the audience to know that (a) the shadow justice secretary is Robert Jenrick, (b) that said Jenrick ran unsuccessfully for the Conservative leadership against Kemi Badenoch last year and (c) that he has in effect kept up his campaign ever since while denying it as unconvincingly as three boys in a single mackintosh trying to get into a cinema in a Whizzer & Chips cartoon, but, you know what? We’ll take it. The next Starmer joke is due around the same time as Halley’s Comet.

This was the last Q&As before the local elections, and didn’t we know it? It began badly enough with a planted question from a baby-faced Labour backbencher, Dan Tomlinson (Chipping Barnet), so silly – basically, were the Tories and Reform plotting together – that speaker Lindsay Hoyle didn’t even give the PM chance to respond. “There is no need to answer that, prime minister; you have no responsibility for any of that,” he said, daggers shot at young Tomlinson.

Actual – for the time being – Tory leader Kemi Badenoch might have been expected to ask about net zero, what with the hoo-hah about Tony Blair pouring cold water on Labour’s climate policy. But that would be to ignore that the Conservatives have a fight on their hands with Reform tomorrow, Badenoch likes to fight on culture war issues and she is the proverbial woman with a hammer who sees every problem as a nail. So grooming gangs it was again.

“In the last year of the Conservative government, we had a gangs taskforce that found 500 perpetrators, protecting thousands of victims,” she said. “We launched the inquiry that the prime minister is talking about, but more still needs to be done. It is now four months since I asked him for a full national inquiry. Instead, he promised five local inquiries. There will be one in Oldham. Will he now name where the other four will be?”

Starmer did not, but he did say that “Conservative members have got so much to say now; why did they not implement a single recommendation in the 14 years they had in office? There are recommendations already in place about the change that needs to be made. They sat on a shelf under the last government; we are acting on them. We are providing for local inquiries, and we are investing more in delivering truth than the last government ever did.”

And to save you the trouble of scouring Hansard, this is pretty much how it went on for six questions. Badenoch asked why Starmer wasn’t doing what she wanted him to do, Starmer asked why she didn’t do it while in office. Eventually the veil dropped and Badenoch revealed the real motivation behind her questioning.

“In the last few days, I have been to Wiltshire, Lincolnshire, Northumberland and Kent. All of them have outstanding children’s social care. Do you know why, Mr Speaker? Because they are all run by Conservatives. That is the difference that Conservative councillors make. Is the choice tomorrow not between chaos and cover-ups under Labour councils, and better services under the Conservatives?”.

Unsurprisingly Starmer did not, although he did agree it was “the country’s first opportunity to pass its verdict on the leader of the opposition and the Conservative Party after the general election… Have they changed? Have they learned? We will see her next week,” he added. As, presumably, will Jenrick.

Finally, up popped Tory Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford), veteran of the Brexit wars of the mid-to-late 2010s, and long-time watchers will not be surprised to hear his question related to the second world war, in which – stop your correspondent if you’ve heard this before – his dad served.

“A week tomorrow, the whole nation will come together to commemorate VE Day,” said Francois. “Those who fought in world war two, including my own father, would often attest that no one did more to maintain their morale in adversity than Dame Vera Lynn, the forces’ sweetheart.” Would, he asked, the PM back a national memorial in her honour?

Yes he would, said Starmer. Maybe we could have one for his joke too?