Discourtesy: PMQs 4th June 2025
The PM’s rough manners and disregard for relevance have worsened.
Jesse Norman MP (Con) raised a point of order at the end of the session, asking the Speaker ‘Could you give us some guidance on whether you may be able to control answers when they are wildly inappropriate?’
The instance Norman cited was when Badenoch asked Starmer about the two-child benefit cap and instead was slapped with a reference to the Kremlin because they appreciated her admission that the Ukraine conflict was a ‘proxy war’ with Russia. (Make that ‘poxy’: not just despicable but contagious and deadly dangerous.)
The Russophobia is a threadbare theme but cheap shots are Sir Keir’s stock in trade; money for old trope? It is curious that he should exploit it now that Russia is a sort of democracy and our country is led by someone suspected of Communistic instincts.
Writing in The Spectator Madeline Grant developed this point, likening the PM to a late-Soviet Leonid Brezhnev assuring us that all is going well. In the Daily Mail Quentin Letts also notes how Starmer has become ‘idly, sarcastically evasive.’
When you have enough power you can speak nonsense to the people but if they protest it’s off to the Lubyanka with them.
And what nonsense it is! Sir Keir’s aggressive 1984-style quacking mismatches responses to queries. Does Reform’s Sarah Pochin suggest banning the burqa, as in several European Countries? She receives a graceless refusal to reply; instead she is told to speak to her leader about unfunded tax cuts; to remember Liz Truss; and anyway I got a rabbit!
Strike that last: Starmer’s egregious arrogance hasn’t yet spilled over into ‘second childishness and mere oblivion.’ But power has gone to his head. Only he can call an early General Election and not even a Labour Party vote of no confidence can remove him. ‘You have me for another four years, ha ha!’
We must be thankful that the PM bothers to face interrogation at all. One of his mentor Tony Blair’s first acts was to consolidate twice-weekly PMQs into a single meeting; as Ian Taylor (Con) then commented, ‘I warmly welcome the Prime Minister to his role of answering questions and I am grateful to him for finding the time in his diary to do so. At some point he might consult the House about these changes.’ Arbitrarily cut down from two, but as Lear’s daughter Regan asks, ‘What needs one?’ Like the old king, we are impotent, must take what we are given.
Here is Sir Keir, commanding an Opposition-crushing Parliamentary majority. He may do as he pleases, for as long as he pleases.
Yet his overwhelming advantage is based on the ballots of only twenty per cent of the electorate. As Tony Benn said in 1991: ‘If people lose the power to sack their Government, one of several things happens. First, people may just slope off. Apathy could destroy democracy. When the turnout drops below 50 per cent., we are in danger.’
The danger is that the very basis of the Prime Minister’s right to rule comes into question when his support among the people is so slender and his opposition there so great and growing. Starmer’s rapprochement with the European Union in particular runs against our clearly expressed wish - no, our instruction, since the main Parties’ undertaking to carry out the result of the 2016 Referendum turned it into a plebiscite. Our claim to be a democracy is being tested. Where on the line from absolute monarchical rule (albeit delegated to the First Minister) to full republic do we sit?
What may we do when our representatives cease to represent us? In 1774 Edmund Burke told his Bristol electors that his duty was not to follow their opinion but to exercise his judgment in their interest; now, it seems our MPs have done neither. How was it in our interest to lose our sovereignty? Whose right was it to decide that?
We owe a debt of thanks to Andrew Neather, a former speechwriter for Mr Blair. In a 2009 article in the London Evening Standard he said that New Labour’s immigration policy was (in his estimation) partly intended ‘to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.’ Naturally many people have been tempted to shoot the messenger but his honesty is greatly to be valued, since it revealed the near-insane mindset of Westminster politics, each side determined to give the other ‘one in the eye’ and a fig for the interests of the general populace. Even worse than the money-grubbing of the Right was their decision to adopt some of New Labour’s policies in the hope of winning a long term in office like Blair’s. LOTO David Cameron joined the unParliamentary applause (see 35:00 on) as ‘Tony’ swanned off to greater things; may we have an honour roll of those who sat on their hands?
Does anybody wonder at the rise of Reform?
Well, to our muttons.
The PM opened by announcing the report of the Strategic Defence Review. No-one was so discourteous as to take him to task for informing Parliament after the Press and other interested parties; but then, the Conservatives had been scolded in the past by Speaker Bercow for similar offences.
LibDem leader Ed Davey’s manners were not quite so polished as his shoes when he repeatedly spoke of ‘Trump’, only once mentioning that man’s office. ‘I had hoped the Prime Minister would now be beginning to see the sort of man Trump is and start getting tough on him,’ said Mr Davey, channelling ‘The Mouse That Roared.’
He went on to speak of aid to Gaza and the role of the United Nations (whose Presidency will soon pass to Ukraine-supporting ‘no matter what my German voters think’ Annalena Baerbock.)
Claire Hanna of the SDLP bandied the term ‘genocide’ and called for recognition of the state of Palestine; both terms lacking definition here. The SNP’s Brendan O’Hara challenged Starmer to stand by the latter’s legal claim that ‘no genocide has occurred or is occurring’ in Gaza; Sir Keir deplored recent actions but reiterated his position that there should be a ceasefire and that Israeli hostages should be released. The pressure mounts; the skilful PR work of Hamas in using their civilians as human shields may yet succeed in defeating and ultimately destroying Israel, despite the PM’s hopes for a two-state solution. In the context of ‘global instability’ (of which this is a part) Starmer reminded Mr O’Hara of the SNP’s opposition to our nuclear deterrent.
The SNP got another blow from Sir Keir in response to Graeme Downie (Labour, Dunfermline and Dollar) who asked about price inflation in Scotland and restricted employment opportunities for young people. The PM made great play of the SNP’s budgetary difficulties and their sad consequences. Dr Scott Arthur (Labour, Edinburgh South West) supplied him with more ammunition in the form of cutbacks in Scottish adult mental health services. Useful whipping-boys, the SNP.
Also on health, when Manuela Perteghella (Con) asked for a reconsideration of the NIC hike hitting care providers Starmer ‘gently’ (a bully signal) told her that her Party had opposed the Budget.
Lincoln Jopp (Con) tried twitting Sir Keir with Mrs Thatcher’s observation that ‘the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.’ The PM hit back with a snide reference to former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, whom Jopp had replaced at the General Election; and to Reform’s ‘unfunded commitments’; and to ‘Liz Truss 2.0.’ There, that bruised several bystanders in his game of Blind-Man’s-Buff!
One whom the PM could not so blithely dismiss was David Davis (Con), who raised the issue of most exonerees not receiving compensation for wrongful imprisonment. But then, Mr Davis had craftily prefaced his query with a reminder that Starmer himself had published a book on ‘Miscarriages of Justice’ in 1999. The PM said he would ‘take away what he says and have it looked at.’ More stiletto questions like that, please.
A clear case of been there done that over centuries. Look at all of the deranged leaders that took us into wars fro their own egos. History is scarred with senseless wars, many started with false narrative and few facts. For years we used the Soviet boogyman to increase military spending. Now we have a NATO induced war that nobody really is intent on solving. But everyone is using to cut domestic spending and building bombs and drones. I see it as the tail waging the dog with a crazy Ukranian dictator running the show. He demands, the woke EU gives.
A big problem is that, more than ever, people are reliant on government assistance. Either tax the overburdened taxpayers or reduce benefits. The people making huge profits off of the war machine don't give a damn. Now, the US is threatening to cut their involvement to NATO. That has further increased the fearmongers cry for more arms. Arms bought from the US. A plan designed by the US to become richer and the NATO nations poorer.
As that happens, the threat of a new world war in Europe will continue. As in the past, the poorest of the countries will try to take from the richer. Old hatred from the last world war still exists and will be renewed. And I am convinced that too many people with their fingers on the nuclear button just don't care. Meanwhile, China and the BRICS countries sit back and wait. Like vultures waiting to pick the carcass.