5 hours ago
8
Much of good comedy lies in the timing. We were about halfway through Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions and Keir Starmer was answering an obviously planted question from a Labour backbencher on the government’s plans to ban political donations from overseas donors and via cryptocurrency. Having done the serious bit, Starmer couldn’t resist the opportunity to sign off with a pop at a man whose party survives on overseas donors and crypto. “There is only one party leader who has shown he will say anything, no matter how divisive, if he is paid to do so.”
Without missing a beat, the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, announced the next questioner. “Nigel Farage”. The Reform leader didn’t seem to find this quite as funny as most other MPs. Nige is becoming more and more thin-skinned these days. Maybe it’s that his party’s lead in the polls has narrowed substantially since the beginning of the war. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t like having policies examined too closely. Maybe he’s pissed off that his income stream from Cameo has temporarily dried up. Or maybe it’s just that he’s actually quite unpleasant.
Nige stood up to ask his question on Smashing the Gangs. One that Starmer more or less ignored. So having pointed out that Reform had voted against every measure the government had put in place, Keir went on a bit of a rant about Reform having supported the war and the party’s failures in local government. A reminder that the local elections are only six weeks away.
There had been nothing personal in this. Keir only occasionally bothers to give a detailed response. But Farage took deep offence. He hadn’t been this outraged for at least a couple of days. It was almost as bad as seeing Muslims praying in Trafalgar Square. That had sent Robert Jenrick into a tail-spin. Honest Bob would be praying hard for white people on Psalm Sunday. As for Nige, he was still lamenting the passing of Cash Wednesday.
Even so, enough was enough for Farage. No one could quite work out if this was a pre-planned stunt – after all, it’s quite unusual for all eight Reform MPs to be in the chamber at the same time – or whether Nige had just taken an unbearable narcissistic wound. Whichever it was, he muttered: “Let’s go” to those next to him, and Reform began a mass walkout. Or nearly mass.
It’s possible that Honest Bob, Suella Braverman and Andrew Rossindell, who were seated farthest away from Nige, hadn’t heard their leader’s command. In which case they must have been wondering what the hell was going on when the other five walked past them. Or maybe they had their doubts about such a pathetic show of petulance, guaranteed to make them look like half-witted sulky teenagers.
If it had been a test of self-worth, then the not-so Fab Three failed abjectly. There again, Reform is more than ever a personality cult. None of his MPs dare to show any sign of original thought: total obedience is all that is required. Otherwise, the wilderness beckons. So, in a matter of seconds, they all beat a retreat. Honest Bob was the last to leave. Trying to retain what dignity he had left with what he hoped was a contemptuous hand gesture. He just looked childish. A five-year-old’s ego in the body of a sulky overgrown midlife crisis.
Which brings us nicely to Kemi Badenoch. It’s just possible that reality is catching up with the Tory leader. In the past few months, no one has seemed to believe more in the Keminaissance than Kemi herself. She has given out the confident vibes of someone who believes her party is 20 points clear of all the others on 40%. Someone who reckons that not being quite so bad at PMQs as she once was makes her irresistible. The Tories locked in a never-ending kiss.
But on Wednesday Kemi appeared somewhat flat, as if it had finally dawned on her that the latest polls had the Tories in fourth place. Behind the Greens. Last week, Kemi had moaned – with justification – that Starmer had failed to answer any of her questions. They had both suffered from selective amnesia. Keir couldn’t remember anything about Peter Mandelson and Kemi couldn’t remember anything about the war. This week, Kemi could have no such complaints. Because Starmer gave her a straight answer to her first question about the Rosebank and Jackdaw oilfields. Fossil fuels would remain an important part of the UK’s energy mix but there was a legal process to go through with Rosebank and Jackdaw that was in the hands of Ed Miliband.
It was almost as if Kemi hadn’t expected such a detailed response. Either she couldn’t think of another question – Kemi has gone full Basil Fawlty on “Don’t mention the war” ever since it became clear she doesn’t know what she thinks – or had just decided that asking the same question five times would make her look good. It didn’t.
So she kept on going. She seemed to think that if we reopened the oil wells today we could have limitless free oil and gas the next day. Almost as if she has gone out of her way to remain ignorant of the differences between the Norwegian and British ownership models and of the internationally fixed price of energy. She also hasn’t quite realised that quoting Tony Blair in her defence isn’t quite the gotcha in Labour circles she think it is. Nor is saying that she would break the law if she was prime minister. Voters tend to be suspicious of that.
Either way Starmer could scarcely believe his luck. All he had to do was repeat the same answer time and again, along with a few jabs about her changing position on the war and pointing out that these days we were all obliged to pay a Trump tax for the pleasure of having a sociopathic idiot in the White House.
Kemi’s day was about to get even worse. The Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, chose to adjudicate. He had been an energy minister who had granted more oil licences and he could categorically state that in the exchanges between Starmer and Badenoch, Keir had been 100% right. Kemi started heckling and then fell quiet. Her own private sulk. But at least she didn’t walk out. Which is not nothing.
