Brief Encounter: PMQs 5th February 2025

The first question, from Dr Neil Hudson (Con, Epping Forest), highlighted suicide among the under-35s; another from Calum Miller (Lib Dem) spoke of the crisis in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), which leaves youngsters waiting for years - in a case he mentioned, the girl would only become a priority if she was ‘actively trying to kill herself.’ Our young people are suffering.

The PM’s opening remarks began with the fatal stabbing of a Sheffield boy on Monday. Later, Labour’s Louise Haigh echoed his horror and called for ‘a whole-system, cross-Government approach to address the root causes of violence.’ Sir Keir sidestepped that systemic suggestion and focused on knife crime, saying ‘we redouble every step to ensure that young people are kept safe.’

A recent governmental step is to make it harder for young people to buy knives online. It’s not the purchase that counts - such a bureaucratic deflection - but the carrying. That has been successfully tackled in the past: in the 1950s a Glasgow judge subdued the city’s razor gangs by giving long jail sentences to all caught carrying a blade. Since then the problem has been allowed to get well out of hand, with over 55,000 knife-related offences recorded in England and Wales in the year to September 2024.

We have been soft on crime for too long. As Starmer told Labour’s Claire Hughes, the Tories ‘effectively told the police to ignore shoplifting of under £200-worth of goods.’ He said Labour had got rid of ‘that shoplifter’s charter’ and that they ‘are working hard to ensure that we take a grip.’ Specifics would be nice.

Opposition Leader Kemi Badenoch started with yet another portmanteau question combining the ‘immoral surrender’ of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius - ‘so that north London lawyers can boast at their dinner parties’ - with Ed Miliband’s failure to defend the Rosebank oil and gas field in the litigation by ‘eco-nutters.’ Starmer may need a voice coach but Badenoch needs a trainer in forensic interrogation.

Nevertheless Sir Keir went for the Chagos option, using the phrase ‘national security’ five times in his first reply and saying that Badenoch was not ‘properly briefed’ on the implications. Riposting in kind, Kemi claimed the PM had shown last week that he did not know what was in his own employment and education bills. The spat rambled on into energy and investment issues - ‘all she can do is student politics’ said Starmer, clearly briefed to take the sting out of a common accusation against Labour by throwing it back without looking at the dartboard.

Curiously, Sir Keir blurted that Badenoch’s inadequate security briefings demonstrated that she was ‘not fit to be Prime Minister.’ Does he sense that he may not have four and a half years of his premiership left?

We need to return to Chagos. The concern in the US is considerable. Senator John Kennedy broke off from a speech about Musk’s audit of USAID to discuss the history and strategic importance of the islands, the UN’s non-binding legal ruling and how Starmer has doubled down on his potentially disastrous historic error, offering even more money for even less lease time. ‘Please don’t do it, Prime Minister.’ Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will forgive, said Kennedy, ‘but they will never ever forget.’ Watch him here.

During her desultory questioning Kemi Badenoch made two references to Sir Keir’s voice coach as did Gagan Mohindra (Con) who, perhaps mischievously exploiting Parliamentary privilege, went so far as to name her in his query about a possible breach of lockdown rules on Christmas Eve in 2020. Neither was as bold as Katie Hopkins on Twitter/X - but then La Hopkins is notorious for her recklessness.

Labour’s Johanna Baxter spoke about Scotland’s funding crisis and the Strathclyde pension fund slashing their employer contributions. Starmer’s stock answer to Caledonian matters was that the Scottish government is a failure, they have the powers and money and no excuses left.

There are implications for the rest of Britain in that reply. Once the great devolution Bill has split up the country we may expect to hear more brushoffs like this about problems in other regions; and then the PM can knock off on a Friday evening as he wishes.

Labour’s John Slinger used his question to swipe at Nigel Farage, whose Reform Party has just overtaken both Labour and Conservatives in a YouGov poll. Would the PM reaffirm our right to medical care free at the point of use? Of course he would.

Soon after, Farage began by responding on that point and there was much noise. He noted ‘there appears to be some panic on the Labour Benches’ before proceeding and the Speaker said he was keen ‘to get this question over with.’ It turned out to be a link between the Clacton constituents’ loss of the Winter Fuel Allowance and the £18 billion loss of our military base on the Chagos Islands. The PM said Reform’s policy ‘would be to charge them for using the NHS’ and they should vote Labour ‘because we are stabilising the economy and boosting their jobs.’ Are those truths, readers?

On immigration (another Tory embarrassment), there was a Bill coming; law settles all. Would the Conservatives support it?

On Gaza, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey declared himself ‘alarmed’ at President Trump’s proposal to take over the Strip and ‘forcibly displace’ its people. Starmer replied emotively with images of Emily Damari reunited with her mother and of ‘thousands of Palestinians literally walking through the rubble to try to find their homes and their communities in Gaza.’

Crime, energy, health, immigration, Hamas’ nest on the shores of the Med… big ideas and swift executive action on the other side of the Atlantic. Here?

Maybe it’s an age thing. Two weeks have passed and already President Trump (78) has shaken the American and global establishments, with more to come. By contrast the British Prime Minister has little to show after six months in office other than multiple crises and promises of jam tomorrow. Is it time for Sir Keir (62) to make way for an older man?