Are we going to war? The first PMQs since the election was like a military briefing between the Tory chief and the new prime minister. Rishi Sunak, now opposition leader, began with a few standard noises about Ukraine’s need for more weapons. He urged Sir Keir Starmer to ask the Germans to send ‘long-range missiles’ in addition to those already pledged by the Americans and by us. To strike where, exactly?
The rest of the session was a doddle for Sir Keir
Sunak then mentioned a fancy new jet-fighter and parroted a phrase from the armourer’s brochure. ‘A crucial sovereign jet capability,’ he called it. He added that Saudi Arabia ‘has a desire to join the programme.’ Labour politicians are usually shy of arming the Saudis but Sir Keir showed no signs of bashfulness. His chops were positively dripping at the prospect of pushing a few shiny new jet-fighters on the Saudi government.
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