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.
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