If he were measuring his success at Prime Minister’s Questions purely by avoiding making any senior colleagues cry, Keir Starmer had a reasonably good session today. Rachel Reeves was beaming on the front bench, and next to her Yvette Cooper was joining in with the smiling too. It was the same level of smiling sincerity as you might see at an overlong secondary school piano recital, but the Prime Minister can probably take that as a win. He repeatedly spoke over his shoulder to Reeves, partly to show they were indeed in ‘lockstep’, but also presumably so he could check that she was still grinning.
The PM repeatedly spoke over his shoulder to Reeves, partly to show they were indeed in ‘lockstep’
In terms of what he actually said, Starmer didn’t have quite such a comfortable session. He got off to what he clearly thought was a good start, giving a one-word answer to Kemi Badenoch’s first question. She asked whether he still stood by his election promises not to increase income tax, national insurance or VAT, and Starmer replied: ‘Yes.’
It was probably a tactic designed to wrongfoot Badenoch, who is normally ready to complain that Starmer hasn’t answered her question at all. It is quite a self-loathing tactic, though, as it involves the Prime Minister acknowledging to himself and his planning team that he doesn’t often give straight answers, something he used to complain about when he was asking the questions as Leader of the Opposition. Anyway, she wasn’t wrong footed this time, merely remarking ‘it is rare that he’s able to give a clear answer, but I am glad that he has done so’. She mocked him for the failure to fully resolve industrial action by doctors, and said ‘he folds in every negotiation but claims it is a triumph’, before reminding Starmer that Reeves had promised at the Budget that she would lift the freeze in national insurance and income tax thresholds. ‘Is that still government policy?’ she wanted to know.
At this point, the value of the one word answer to the first question reversed totally, because it now highlighted how verbose Starmer was in his second:
‘No Prime Minister or Chancellor is going to write a Budget in advance. We are absolutely fixed on our fiscal rules, we remain committed to them. We remain committed to our manifesto commitment, I realise that sticking to your fiscal rules and your manifesto commitments is a bit unfamiliar to the party opposite, but it’s because of the decisions that the Chancellor took and that this government has taken that we can update the house…’
He then listed exhaustively various Good Things that he wanted to update the house on which were in fact not news. Nor were they an answer to the question, which Badenoch immediately pointed out. ‘The whole house will have heard him fail to rule out freezing tax thresholds! He could say it in the first question, he could promise, but he couldn’t this time around.’
She then explained what it meant, saying ‘millions of our poorest pensioners face being dragged into income tax for the first time ever’, and asked whether Starmer thought it right that they would now face a ‘retirement tax’. The Prime Minister retreated to his very well worn argument that the Tories couldn’t say how they would fund what they wanted to do.
When Badenoch asked about the reports Labour was considering a wealth tax, Starmer responded with another list of things that had gone well under Labour, along with the liturgical mention of Liz Truss. He did not answer the question directly then, but later told the Greens that ‘we can’t just tax our way to growth’ when they called for a wealth tax. By then, though, Badenoch had got what she had wanted: a warning that Labour will be coming for people via the tax thresholds, and a snappy term – the ‘retirement tax’ to go with it.
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