Powerful stuff from Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs. He tackled Rishi Sunak on his favourite battleground – statistics. He began by pinning the PM down on a very specific question. How many mortgage-holders have to pay more each month because the Tories ‘crashed the economy last autumn’? Rishi didn’t know. Sir Keir gave him the answer and promptly gloated over the PM’s failure to reply. Next he asked how many future mortgage-holders will enter the trap of rising payments. No reply from Rishi. He simply didn’t know. Bad look.
Sir Keir has wisely shifted the focus of his attacks. Rather than complaining about Mrs Sunak’s bank balance – which feels ungallant – he brought up the family swimming pool which, he claimed, costs £9,000 a year to heat. By a miraculous coincidence this equals the average deposit paid by a first-time home-owner. A useful caricature emerges. The idle Sunaks are languishing in their beautiful garden, dangling their pampered toes in their pre-heated pool, while millions of oppressed workers have to toil and scrimp just to buy their first house.
Sir Keir has wisely shifted the focus of his attacks
Sir Keir implied that homeowners would be richer if only the Sunaks would turn down the temperature a notch. But the parasitic PM refuses to do so because he’s a callous, arrogant despot. This may be gutter politics but who says it doesn’t work?
The snag is that Rishi doesn’t suffer visibly when under pressure. Though he failed to answer several times – and was rightly berated by Sir Keir for ducking and weaving and dodging – he never showed a flicker of self-doubt. Stab vest in place. Armour untouched.
The backbenchers amused themselves with a parade of daft, idiotic or misdiagnosed complaints. Munira Wilson, MP for Twickenham, raised the unfortunate case of a daredevil in her constituency who decided to plunge half-naked into a local sewage outlet known as the River Thames. The rash amphibian contracted a near-fatal skin disease that required 13 days of emergency treatment. Yet Ms Wilson tried to hold the Prime Minister responsible for her constituent’s love of dangerous sports. Rishi replied by asking Ms Wilson why she didn’t support his attempt to detoxify the Thames. When the bill was before the house the Lib Dems ignored it. ‘They didn’t even show up,’ he carped.
Mary Kelly Foy entertained the house with a tale of, literally, jaw-dropping horror. A constituent who couldn’t book an NHS dentist hired a private expert who found a monstrous growth lurking in their gums. After 16 hours of ‘gruelling surgery’ the offending tumescence was extracted, pulverised and burned – or perhaps displayed in a local museum. And yet Ms Kelly Foy ignored the obvious conclusion, that NHS dentistry should be abolished, and instead asked the PM to expand our useless state dentistry service. Rishi promptly agreed to this insanity.
Holly Lynch, MP for Halifax, recited the benefits available to families with parents who ‘can’t cook.’ Free breakfasts are served to thousands of kids each day by smiling dinner ladies who also prepare a lovely big lunch for them all. And catering tuition is available to clueless mums and dads who have no idea how to prepare food. The abundance of free meals, claimed Ms Lynch, is affecting the mental health of school staff. She asked a head teacher how often she worries about hungry scholars in her care. ‘All the time,’ came the weepy reply. ‘It never leaves you.’
The real problem is synthetic neediness. Parents know perfectly well how to cook but they choose to fatten their children on banquets funded by their neighbours’ taxes. Any mum or dad who doesn’t use free school meals must be bonkers.
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