PMQs Review: A dangerous question for Keir Starmer

There comes a point for every prime minister when the most dangerous questions come not from the side opposite but from behind. When the awkward questioning comes from the PM’s own benches, it’s a sign the honeymoon is over. While Keir Starmer has not really had much of a honeymoon – his relationship with the British public being less of a betrothal and more a one-night stand which got weirdly out of hand – it’s very much back home now.

Questions from the Labour benches have been reliably obsequious for the first eight months of Starmer’s reign. A combination of largely wet-behind-the-ears MPs and gratitude for power meant they were predominantly pointless set-ups handed out by the whips (“Does the prime minister agree that Tories are awful rotters?”) or provincial fare designed for what remains of the local press (“Could I invite the prime minister to visit Stevenage?” – a question to which the answer should always, always be “no”).

But might things stir now that the slashing of the foreign aid budget is followed by plans for welfare which sound a bit, well, Tory? They might. Granted, one sign came today from Richard Burgon, the member of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet the most likely to need his mum to tie his shoelaces. It should be recalled that, during his campaign for the deputy leadership in 2020 he imagined the party “investing in its own free newspaper given out on public transport” while conceding “I’m no expert at that”. All the same, Burgon’s question in the commons today is almost certainly indicative of wider unease.

“Disabled people in my constituency are frightened because they are again hearing politicians use the language of ‘tough choices’,” said the MP for Leeds East. “They know from bitter experience that when politicians talk about tough choices, it means the easy option of making the poor and vulnerable pay. Instead of cutting benefits for disabled people, would not the moral thing – the courageous thing – to do be to make a real tough choice, and introduce a wealth tax on the very wealthiest people in our society?”

Starmer did his stock answer about the legacy left by the Conservatives before delivering a Blairite-like mantra that “we must support people who need support; we must help those who want to work to get back into work, and I think there is a moral imperative in that”. Did that assuage his more uncomfortable backbenchers? It remains to be seen. The ages of those newbies suggest they came of age politically booing George Osborne and chanting about Nick Clegg and austerity. It might not be long before some of them, less hardline than Burgon, start to break ranks.

We dwell on Burgon because Kemi Badenoch, the actual leader of the opposition, may as well have not turned up. With domestic attention on welfare – cuts to which she is hardly going to oppose – and nary a cigarette paper between the two main parties on Ukraine, she was left talking about the budget again, an event four months ago, although given the complete reversal of the post-war order has taken place since, may as well have been 70 years. “People vote Labour, and all they get is trash – just like what he is saying at the Dispatch Box,” she said at one point, weirdly utilising an Americanism and sounding like Oscar the Grouch.

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, meanwhile, asked about President Trump’s metal tariffs and whether the prime minister would “fly out to Canada as soon as possible to show its new prime minister and the Canadian people that Britain stands with its Commonwealth allies against Trump’s threats and Trump’s tariffs”. Starmer responded that “we are, as the right honourable gentleman knows, negotiating an economic deal, which covers and will include tariffs, if we succeed, but we will keep all options on the table”, a sentence the last part of which got some journalists on social media very excited indeed despite, on closer examination, meaning precisely nothing.

The most unpleasant moment of the session came from Andrew Griffith, a ruddy-faced gentleman parked to Badenoch’s left, geographically if not politically, who thought that a question about antisemitism would be a good opportunity to heckle the PM.

Labour MP Tulip Siddiq asked about antisemitism on NHS wards, “in particular about a shocking incident in which a Jewish NHS staff member was called a baby killer by a colleague”. Starmer responded that “it is a fundamental principle that the NHS provides care and treatment for everyone, regardless of race, faith or background”. To which Griffith shouted, in apparent reference to recent controversial changes to sentencing policy, “But it’s okay in the justice system?” Starmer said that Griffith “has let himself down, and he knows it”. Griffith is apparently shadow business secretary.

Finally, Claire Hanna, leader of the SDLP, rose. “Lá Fhéile Pádraig shona daoibh agus Seachtain na Gaeilge daoibh,” she said. “Deis lenár dteanga agus ár gcultúr a cheiliúradh ar fud an domhain.”

“Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all and Happy Irish Week to you all,” Google Translate tells me. “A chance to celebrate our language and culture around the world.” Although it may well have meant “This is really going to piss off those Hansard stenographers.”