PMQs Review: A black hole special

Nigel Farage’s admittedly infrequent contributions to the European Parliament were met with a torrent of jeers before he had even begun, his fellow MEPs inured to the dross about to leave his lips. For his first contribution to Prime Minister’s Questions, MPs at least waited for him to utter something idiotic, ignorant or inflammatory before the scoffing commenced.

They waited 17 seconds. That was the time between the Reform leader rising to ask Keir Starmer a question and him repeating a far-right social media trope, this one being that the police have a deliberate policy of treating white people differently.

“Yesterday we witnessed some extraordinary celebratory scenes outside Britain’s prisons where, in some cases, serious career criminals were released,” said Farage. “And this to make way for, yes, rioters, but equally those who’ve said unpleasant things on Facebook and elsewhere on social media. Does the prime minister understand there is a growing feeling of anger in the country that we are living through two-tier policing and a two-tier justice system?”

It’s worth asking here quite who these people saying “unpleasant things” on social media are. Was it Jordan Parlour, sentenced to 20 months for saying that “every man and his dog should smash [the] fuck out of” a hotel housing migrants in Leeds? Or Julie Sweeney, who received 15 months after urging: “Don’t protect the mosques, blow the mosque up with the adults in it”?

Or maybe Farage was referring to Tyler James Kay, who charmingly wrote “Set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care” and is spending 38 months at His Majesty’s pleasure for his troubles. Who knows?

Whatever, the cries of “shame” rang around the Commons at Farage’s comments for what one suspects might not be the last time. The Reform MPs lapped it up, though, including James McMurdock, the MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, who hasn’t said unpleasant things on Facebook but has spent time in the Big House for assaulting a former girlfriend.

Starmer wisely chose not to engage with Farage on his two-tier slurs but it at least gave him the opportunity to point out, once again, that the new government had discovered a £22 billion black hole in the national coffers.

This, you won’t be surprised to hear, wasn’t the first time Starmer played “£22 Billion Black Hole”, the decidedly downbeat follow-up to his summer hit “My Father Was A Toolmaker”, this session. Because he repeated it again and again in response to Rishi Sunak’s – yes, he’s still there! – questions about the winter fuel allowance.

Labour MPs had voted to remove the winter fuel payment from more than 10 million pensioners including those with incomes of just £13,000, Sunak said. “So can I very specifically ask the prime minister, will he now publish the impact assessment before the House rises?”

“The fact of the matter is this,” began Starmer, the Tory groans starting. “They left a £22 billion black hole! And they hid it from the OBR! Richard Hughes is absolutely clear it’s the largest yearly overspend outside of the pandemic!”

Your correspondent checked, and this was pretty much word-for-word the exact same first answer Starmer delivered to his first question last week, in response to something completely different. Next to him sat Rachel Reeves who, on a day the government really didn’t want to talk about people not being able to afford heating, chose to wear a thick scarf indoors.

Sunak bobbed and weaved but Starmer pulled off his black hole special move each time. Eventually Sunak gave up and moved on to farming, largely, it appeared, so he could make a ‘joke’ about Starmer’s decision to remove a painting of Margaret Thatcher from his office. “Farmers also do great work to preserve the beauty of the British countryside, something I’m sure the prime minister will appreciate given his new-found preference for landscapes over political portraiture.”

Don’t give up the day job, Rishi. Oh, he has.