PMQs: Shock as Badenoch achieves the unthinkable

After the Supreme Court ruling on the legal status of a woman, there was one question which was destined to dominate prime minister’s questions today, and so it proved: does the government agree that the legal definition of a woman should be based on biological sex?

It should be a simple yes-no question, but ironically it’s less binary than that and there is a third response: that you welcome the ruling and it brings clarity. We know this, because chancellor Rachel Reeves has said that she welcomed the ruling and it brought clarity, and yesterday education secretary Bridget Phillipson, who must have been delighted to also hold the hospital pass of the equalities portfolio on a day she really, really wanted to be talking about school breakfast clubs, said she welcomed the ruling and it brought clarity.

Today it was the turn of prime minister Keir Starmer to face Kemi Badenoch, who must have been pleased to finally get the equivalent of a home draw. After a Today programme interview earlier in the week once again suggested she might be as suited to being leader of the opposition as the Chuckle Brothers running a funeral home, this was her turf: the culture wars, not the mere fripperies of, you know, the economy and public services. She must have licked her lips.

After paying tribute to the late Pope Francis – “Being married to a Catholic, I know the profound loss for millions in Britain and across the world,” she said, the implication being anyone not married to a Catholic must be confused as to what the whole hoo-hah is about – she asked: “Does the prime minister now accept that when he said that it was the law that trans women were women, he was wrong?”

The prime minister had had two days to know this was coming, so presumably he had a real doozie up his sleeve? Er, no. “Let me be clear,” he said, before being no such thing. “I welcome the Supreme Court ruling on this issue. It brings clarity, and it will give confidence to women, and of course to service providers. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will now issue updated guidance. It is important that that happens, and that all service providers then act accordingly.”

Did this satisfy Badenoch? Also no. Would he apologise to Rosie Duffield, the former Labour MP whose previous stated views on this issue look, to the untrained eye, not a million miles from those now apparently held by the prime minister?

Starmer wasn’t going to get sidetracked. “We should treat everyone with dignity and respect,” he said, adding that, when we don’t, “we end up with the spectacle of a decent man – and he was a decent man, the previous prime minister – diminishing himself at this dispatch box by making trans jokes while the mother of a murdered trans teenager watched from the public gallery just up there”. It is worth remembering that this particular grim spectacle actually happened.

This batted back and forth for a question or two – Badenoch accusing Starmer of hiding from giving an answer, Starmer reminding her of her own avoidance of this particular hot potato when holding the equalities brief herself – when the prime minister suddenly remembered something: Bobby J!

Robert Jenrick, shadow justice secretary, former leadership candidate and almost certain future leadership candidate – ironically for a Brexiteer, he lost and won’t get over it – wasn’t in his place in the Commons, the day a leaked recording showed him mulling over a possible Tory-Reform coalition deal.

“The mask has slipped, just one week before the elections!” said the PM. “The shadow justice secretary is not here! A man who is doing everything he can to replace her, the man that most Conservative members want as leader of their party, has admitted that Reform and the Tories are working together!” On what remains of the Reform bench, they guffawed.

“He should be more worried about his backbenchers than my frontbenchers,” responded Badenoch, in a sentence even more daft written down than spoken aloud. Because, if she was actually any good at her job, shouldn’t the prime minister be worried about her frontbenchers? If this was a home game for Badenoch, Starmer just about eked out a draw by taking the ball into the corner and somehow keeping it there for the last 15 minutes.