PMQs: Badenoch’s Trumpy debut

And so the eyes of the entire world today turned to the newly-elected leader, one set to shake up the existing order, one who had captured the… actually, let’s not start with a laboured joke about Kemi Badenoch’s first appearance at PMQs being every so slightly undermined by Donald Trump’s reelection.

Although it does raise the question of why on earth the Conservative Party chose three days before a US presidential election to announce their new leader, bringing with it the very real, and now realised, possibility their first appearance at the despatch box would struggle to compete in the news stakes with events Stateside. Perhaps they’re an utter shambles. Who knows?

Still, her credentials were flagged up in advance. Appearing on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning two Conservatives from very different wings of the party, short-lived former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and exiled ex attorney general Dominic Grieve could at least agree Badenoch was going to give Keir Starmer a headache. “Fiery” was the word both could agree on.

In the event, Badenoch’s fire seemed largely extinguished by the water she sipped at throughout. Was the self-styled woke warrior… nervous? It certainly seemed so.

Starmer greeted her by saying how he looked “forward to working with her in the interests of the British public,” a welcome akin to signing a departing colleague’s card with “Good luck” and then your name. “Mr Speaker, can I thank the prime minister for his almost warm welcome,” said Badenoch in her first words in her new seat.

She told the chamber that hers would be a “constructive opposition”. Before then asking: “The prime minister and the foreign secretary met [Donald Trump] in September. Did the foreign secretary take that opportunity to apologise for making derogatory and scatalogical references, including, and I quote, ‘Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath, he is also a profound threat to the international order’, and, if he did not apologise, will the prime minister do so now on his behalf?”

There is much to unpack. Deliberately trying to create a rift between your own country’s government and the incoming one of the USA, especially when you’ve spent much of the past eight or so years declaring that we don’t need to deal with the EU as our trade relationship with America is so much more important, doesn’t seem particularly constructive, but hey-ho.

Similarly, using your very first question at PMQs to align yourself with a man whose reelection has been met with horror across much of Britain, and who only 30-40% say they would have voted for, does seem a bit of an odd way to introduce yourself to the country. Unless, say, your entire strategy is to shore up your right flank from Nigel Farage’s Reform.

It was all part of an unimpressive first session from Badenoch. She taunted Starmer for his scripted answers, saying how “the prime minister’s scripted lines show that he has not even listened to the Budget himself, so I will try a different question. Perhaps he can give something that is unscripted to the people who are watching”.

This would not be a terrible line, were it not for the fact that Badenoch’s eyes seemed to be very much trained on the notes on the table in front of her rather than the prime minister. Even Starmer, not the sharpest fox in the box, leapt on that. “If she is going to complain about scripted answers, it is probably best not to read that from a script,” he chortled.

Another unforced error was when Badenoch claimed that “his chancellor’s Budget did not even mention defence”. This would be a shocking admission if true. However, had Badenoch gone to the Budget speech – available on the Treasury’s website – pressed CTRL+F and entered the word ‘defence’, she would have noticed that, not only was the word used several times, Rachel Reeves announced a total increase to the Ministry of Defence’s Budget of £2.9bn next year, ensuring the UK comfortably exceeds its Nato commitments. “The one thing that I learned as leader of the opposition is that it is a good idea to listen to what the government are actually saying,” said Starmer. The election of Badenoch now appears to be such a gift he might even declare it.

And even if she hadn’t stumbled so badly, the Labour whips had a trick up their sleeve. A number of ambitious backbenchers had been teed up with questions about Badenoch’s own ill-thought-through remarks – of which there are many – to pose to the PM.

So Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) asked if Starmer thought maternity pay had “gone too far”, Alex Baker (Aldershot) wondered if he agreed autistic people received economic privileges and protections, Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) mused on whether the minimum wage should be scrapped and Mary Glindon (Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend) queried whether Partygate was a big old hoo-ha over nothing. (In her defence, Badenoch has denied saying all these things, despite them being said into cameras and microphones).

The penultimate question came from one of Badenoch’s leadership rivals, James Cleverly, now on the backbenches and, indeed, about as far back as one gets without climbing the Elizabeth Tower. He asked Starmer about his Budget and the PM’s “reputation for dishonesty”.

“We are keeping the promises that we made in our manifesto,” snapped back the PM. “The right honourable gentleman’s problem is that he cannot add up; if he could, he might be down on the frontbench rather than up on the backbenches.”

Cleverly, of course, was the Tory frontrunner until some electoral chicanery blew up in his face and denied him passage to the final two. Badenoch might have allowed herself a smile. Suddenly she wasn’t the leadership contender who’d had the worst day.