Backbench Tories support Sunak at PMQs

Keir Starmer had a dilemma at Prime Minister’s Questions. Focus on the Boris Johnson psychodrama, or the more tangible story about mortgages and interests rates? He went for Tory infighting first.

But then Sunak took the curious approach of deciding to use Starmer’s opener as an opportunity to address the Johnson question head on, rather than trying to argue that his sole focus was on the economy and the cost of living. He told the chamber that ‘I followed the process to the letter’ and that he had stuck by the convention of all prime ministers in sending Johnson’s peerages unamended, rather than blocking it as Starmer said he should have done. Starmer has spent this week arguing that Tory disruption and ‘tantrums’ are deterring investors from the UK. Sunak sounded distracted: he answered the Boris Johnson half-question and not the line in it about people across the country worrying about costs and mortgages.