PMQs Review: U-turn if you want, the lady's not listening

In 1997, then Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman famously asked home secretary Michael Howard the same question 12 times in an interview. Evaded over and over again on a point central to a scandal which has long since been forgotten, the rottweiler repeated, “Did you threaten to overrule him?” while Howard found various artful ways to avoid confirming or denying the threat. (On Paxman’s final show, 17 years later, Howard confirmed he did not threaten to overrule whoever it was he was accused of threatening to overrule, thus rendering the whole thing a complete waste of everybody’s time).

Were Kemi Badenoch the interviewer, and her interviewee not only turned up to the studio clad in a garish yellow jumper proclaiming ‘I THREATENED TO OVERRULE HIM’, but also beginning the grilling by loudly singing “I threatened to overrule him” to the tune of Katy Perry’s I Kissed A Girl, it is entirely possible the Tory leader would have still asked the question 12 times. That was the takeaway from today’s PMQs.

Keir Starmer committed the cardinal sin of prime minister’s questions today: he created news. PMQs is not supposed to be the place to do news: it is for avoiding saying anything interesting, hopefully clobbering your opponent around the head a few times and allowing a backbench MP from Dimwit-upon-Sea to ask if you’ll join him in congratulating his local non-league team on making the play-offs.

So it was not without shock that Starmer had something to say, and had tasked an obscure backbench MP to tee him up with a question straight from the whips’ office.

“While the economy is showing signs of improving, many pensioners are still impacted by the cost of living crisis,” asked Sarah Owen (Luton North). “People in Luton who have worked hard all their lives are seeing their precious savings slip away. Will the prime minister tell us what measures he will take to help struggling pensioners in towns like mine?”.

Starmer took a deep breath, engaged the clutch and prepared to swing his metaphorical car in the opposite direction. Following a preamble about the absolute state his predecessors left the economy in, he said: “I recognise that people are still feeling the pressure of the cost of living crisis, including pensioners, and as the economy improves, we want to make sure that people feel those improvements each day as their lives go forward.

“That is why we want to ensure that more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments as we go forward. As you would expect, Mr Speaker, we will make only the decisions that we can afford, and that is why we will look at that as part of a fiscal event.”

And there you go: an actual, screeching, 180-degree U-turn on the most contentious act of the Labour government’s programme since returning to office almost 10 months ago. All performed in front of the leader of the opposition. Surely even Kemi couldn’t stuff this up?

Except, of course, she could. To be fair, she could have been thinking about something else entirely while Starmer performed a humiliating U-turn both expensive and almost certainly too late to win back any support lost: the exact wording of her first question, what to have for dinner tonight, whether the mooted cuts to Loose Women would have an impact on her post-leadership career plans. Whatever, she wasn’t listening.

“It was extraordinary listening to that last answer from the prime minister,” said the woman who’d not been listening. “Inflation was two per cent when the Conservatives left office; it is now nearly double that. When will he recognise that it is Labour’s Budget that is driving up inflation?”.

What? Starmer couldn’t believe his luck. “What the right honourable lady forgot to say was that inflation rose to more than 11% on the Conservatives’ watch, and she did not say a word,” he began, before launching another attack on the Tories’ record and oddly quoting George Osborne’s podcast approvingly. Had she missed it?

Following a second question (also on inflation) and third (on tax rises), by the fourth she finally asked her question. “I shall ask him a simple question. It requires only one word: yes or no. Is he planning to U-turn on winter fuel cuts?,” she asked the man who, just a few minutes ago and two sword-length’s away, had announced he was planning to U-turn on winter fuel cuts.

“I made it clear in my earlier answer that as the economy improves, we want to take measures that will impact people’s lives, so we will look at the threshold, but that will have to be part of a fiscal event,” repeated Starmer.

“I made it really easy for the prime minister, “ fumed Badenoch. “It was a simple question – yes or no – and he could not answer it. I wonder how the public feel about a man who cannot give a straight answer to a simple question.” And on she went: “Hands up who here wanted winter fuel cuts? Not a single one of them. The fact is, this prime minister is destroying them. They need to look at what they are doing to the country.”

The Tory leader might have been better turning around and asking for a show of hands among her own MPs as to who still wanted her, or might prefer a leader with an ability to think even slightly on their feet – this had been woeful.

A few weeks ago, Keir Starmer made a joke at PMQs and it was genuinely funny. It is with some regret that we must report he has taken the lesson from it that he is a comedian, and he must be stopped immediately. Or we will get more of this sort of nonsense in response to a question about immigration from Reform foghorn Lee Anderson.

“It is very good that the honourable member is standing in for the honourable member for Clacton today,” joshed the prime minister of Nigel Farage, reported to be on holiday in France. “There was no sign of him yesterday at the EU summit. He was the first through the e-gates to somewhere in the south of France: Nice work if you can get it!”.

Alas for Starmer, the Hansard recording doesn’t note that he pronounced ‘Nice’ like the French city, in France, like where Farage is. Geddit? It is to Badenoch’s shame that, following this joke and the first handbrake turn of his premiership yet, the prime minister still came out on top in this session.