Kemi Badenoch made some changes to her strategy at Prime Minister’s Questions today and had a much better time of it. She stuck to one topic, rather than performing handbrake turns from one matter to another, and she didn’t accuse Keir Starmer of not answering the question.
Instead, she claimed the Prime Minister was ‘out of touch’ and had no idea ‘what is happening out there’.
The Tory leader’s focus was on the national insurance increase, which comes into effect next month. She asked first about job losses caused by the rise in employers’ contributions, and responded curtly that Starmer ‘needs to get out more’ when he argued that Labour had created thousands of new jobs and more investment since coming to office. She argued that the tax rises ‘are hurting every sector of the economy, and used rising nursery fees as an example of that. Can he explain how more expensive childcare is good for the economy or for working families struggling to make ends meet?’ she asked.
Starmer replied that the government was setting up breakfast clubs – which is obviously a separate issue given they are for school age children rather than early years. He then argued that Badenoch was ‘forgetting the £22 billion black hole that they left us to deal with’ and that she ‘wants all the benefits of our budget in terms of investment but she doesn’t want to pay for it’ because she was offering no details of how she would fund an alternative approach.
In response, Badenoch pointed out that he was ‘talking about 60p breakfast clubs’ while she was talking about nurseries charging over £2,000 for full-time care. ‘He has no idea what people out there are experiencing’. On the exchanges went, through council tax increases, winter fuel payments and rising food prices. Badenoch also accused Starmer and Rachel Reeves of ‘killing farming in this country’ and making ‘life so much harder for everyone else’, before claiming that the Chancellor would be presenting an ‘emergency budget’ in two weeks which had been necessitated because ‘they trashed the economy with their bad choices’. Her payoff was that this is a ‘high tax, low growth, job-killing government’, and that Starmer should ‘use the emergency budget to fix the mess he’s made’.
Starmer was clearly more concerned about Labour MPs’ response to the welfare cuts planned in that forthcoming budget. The first question after Badenoch sat down came from a loyal Labour MP welcoming the plan to ‘give everyone who is able to work the support they need’ and ‘fix the broken welfare system left behind by, you guessed it, the Conservatives’. It gave Starmer the chance to repeat the argument he made to his parliamentary party earlier in the week, which was that we ‘inherited a system which is broken’ and which is ‘indefensible, economically and morally, and we must and we will reform’. He added that the government had ‘clear principles’ and would ‘protect those who need protecting’. But ‘Labour is the party of work,’ he added.
Ed Davey followed this with his own question about cuts to disability benefits in particular. He wanted Starmer to ‘calm anxiety for many’ people who were worried that those who ‘simply cannot work’ will not lose their entitlement. Davey also wanted to know about the UK’s response to the ‘damaging metal tariffs already hitting British industry’, and whether Starmer would fly out to Canada to show support to its Commonwealth ally, as well as being more robust with President Trump’. Starmer replied that Canada was ‘an ally and a very important ally too’. He added that: ‘I am disappointed to see global tariffs in relation to steel and aluminium, but we will take a pragmatic approach. We are, as he knows, negotiating an economic deal with coverts and will include tariffs if we succeed. But we will keep all options on the table.’ That presumably includes retaliatory tariffs.
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