Women and Sir Keir Starmer. That was the issue that dominated a fiery PMQs today. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch asked Sir Keir if he’d been ‘wrong to say trans women are women.’
His bland but careful answer expressed a wish that ‘service providers’ should obey the ruling. Then he loftily advised the house to ‘lower the temperature.’
Kemi noted his failure to admit that he was wrong. And she accused him of targeting Rosie Duffield, ‘the brave member for Canterbury,’ and of ‘hounding her out of the Labour party for telling the truth.’ Would he apologise?
No chance. Sir Keir boasted that Labour’s approach is to ‘treat everyone with respect’ and never to use the issue as a political football. Then he went off on a weird tangent. He referred to a forgotten controversy about Rishi Sunak who once made a comment at PMQs which was misconstrued as transphobic.
‘A decent man,’ said Sir Keir piously, ‘diminishing himself at this despatch-box.’
This was irrelevant to Kemi’s question about a wronged female MP.
‘A political football?’ said Kemi. ‘He practically kicked her out of his party.’
Good strike. She asked him to explain his delay of six days before commenting on the Supreme Court’s verdict.
‘Why so long?’ she said, supplying the answer. ‘He was scared.’
Sir Keir affected to ignore this, and he attacked Kemi’s record as Minister for Women.
‘She provided no clarity on the law. She did nothing to improve women’s lives.’
Then another swerve into trivial side-issues. He rambled about mixed sex wards and the failure of Tory trade secretaries to secure a deal with the US. His rant came to an end as he called Kemi ‘a spectator, not a leader.’
Whoops. She’s in opposition. He’s in charge. For a moment, the prime minister seemed to have forgotten that he’s the prime minister. It got worse as Kemi corrected his falsehoods about her spell in office.
‘I’ll tell him what I did,’ she said allowing herself a smile. ‘I will.’
She listed her actions in support of women, ‘while he was cheering on the ideology that was taking away safe spaces.’ In Scotland, the Labour party whipped its members to vote for the placement of male rapists in women’s jails. And Sir Keir fully approved.
She mentioned a WhatsApp group where cabinet members are discussing how to circumvent the Supreme Court. Doesn’t this prove that Labour can’t be taken seriously?
Still having no answers, Sir Keir took another side-step into irrelevances. He speculated about Robert Jenrick’s possible talks with Nigel Farage concerning an election deal in 2029. Way off the point. He seemed to have lost control of his brief completely. Which is astonishing for a man of his experience. He may be a plodder but at least he’s well organised. Not today. This was a clueless, hopeless, rudderless Sir Keir.
Kemi picked on up the issue of Robert Jenrick. ‘He should be more worried about his backbenchers than my frontbenchers,’ she said. Another good improvisation.
She asked about Baroness Falkner, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, whose support for the Supreme Court has exposed her to ‘relentless abuse’ by Labour members. Kemi wanted to know if Sir Keir planned to reappoint her.
At this point, Sir Keir vanished into a vortex of obfuscation. You might call it a black hole. He ignored the question and rabbited on about the Tories’ failure to prosecute rape suspects and the length of NHS waiting lists. Then he wasted two more sentences raving about the alleged machinations between Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick. Meanwhile Kemi’s question hung in the air, unanswered. Even Sir Keir’s enemies must have felt a pang of sorrow at this humiliating performance.
‘He’s clearly so uncomfortable talking about this subject,’ smiled Kemi. It almost sounded helpful. Then she went for him.
‘Labour bent the knee to every passing fad,’ she said. ‘The truth is, he doesn’t have the balls. … He’s a weathervane. He twists in the wind. … He cheered an ideology because he thought it was cool. … He hounded an MP for telling a truth that he accepts now. … He doesn’t know what he actually believes.’
It’s rare to hear an MP improvise phrases that are succinct enough to appear on election literature. Kemi did it. And she’s left Sir Keir with a whole heap of issues that won’t go way. No admission of his error. No apology to Rosie Duffield. No word of support for Baroness Falkner. No slapdown for the rebels plotting to defy the Supreme Court.
His autobiographers may mark today as the beginning of the end.
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