Wow. For Rishi fans, that was one to forget. The Tory leader lacked his usual fluency and focus at PMQs today. Instead of a hungry whippet leaping out of the traps, we watched a fretful hare being chased around the circuit.
If mockery won votes, this was a landslide
Rishi’s sub-par effort coincided with a rare display of competence from Sir Keir Starmer who, for once, used clever tactics at the despatch box. He cooked up a difficult to answer question and asked it again and again. Why doesn’t he do that every week? Rishi kept parroting the same non-answers which made him look feeble. The issue was Rwanda, and Sir Keir accused the government of ‘losing contact with 85 per cent of the 5,000 people earmarked for removal… Has he found them yet?’ he asked.
Unprepared, Rishi flannelled and flubbered in general terms about large numbers of migrants arrested, bank accounts closed, claims processed at record rates. All irrelevant. Sir Keir went back to the disappearing deportees.
‘How do you lose 4,250 people?’ he said, translating his ‘85 per cent’ into a specific figure as a warning to Rishi that he’s not the only maths genius in the house.
Sir Keir then mentioned a handful of other Tory follies such as Rishi’s fruitless tiff with Greece over the Elgin Marbles and the HS2 money furnace. The bonfire has been scrapped and yet ‘the costs are still rising,’ said Sir Keir. And he returned to the unresolved question. ‘These 4,250 people the government have lost. Where are they?’
Dodging and shimmying, Rishi quoted an interview in which Sir Keir had vowed to scrap the Rwanda scheme even if it works. ‘He doesn’t have a plan. It’s back to square one,’ he cried.
‘That’s not a plan, it’s a farce,’ said Sir Keir. And he continued to pummel the bruise. ‘He’s dodged it three times. Where are they?’
By now Rishi was talking with all the conviction of a menswear dummy. ‘I’m happy to go over it for him again,’ he pleaded. Sir Keir duly swung at him again.
‘I’ll tell you one place they aren’t – Rwanda,’ he said. ‘The only people he’s sent to Rwanda are cabinet ministers.’
Eruptions of laughter greeted that quip. If mockery won votes, this was a landslide. Rishi tried to praise his Rwanda Bill amidst the hubbub by quoting legal experts. ‘Lord Wolfson,’ he shouted. ‘And four eminent KCs say it is undoubtedly the most robust piece of immigration legislation that…’
The Speaker stood up to quell the hurricane.
‘I want to hear what the Prime Minister has to say,’ he said. This plea only added to the laughter from the Labour benches. Rishi has never lost the house like this before. He soldiered on, repeating himself.
‘Four eminent KCs…’ he began.
‘Four!?’ jeered sarky Labour members. Sir Keir fired back derisively. ‘Absolutely pathetic nonsense.’
Rishi now laid on the ambush that he’d probably hoped to spring earlier. Flourishing a legal volume penned by Sir Keir, he read out the title but the Speaker was already on his feet. Rishi didn’t notice and he continued making his point. Oh dear.
‘Prime Minister, when I stand up, please sit down,’ said the Speaker in a fatigued voice. ‘And can I just say, we don’t use props in this house.’
It was a moment Rishi will relive forever in his nightmares. Slapped down twice by the Speaker in a single sentence.
His ambush was now devoid of firepower – even though it had merit. Rishi told the house that Sir Keir had lobbied against a ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir and had earned specific praise from their spin doctors. ‘Our legal team, led by Sir Keir Starmer,’ boasted the revolutionaries. Having laid out this information, Rishi delivered his punchline.
‘When I see a group chanting “jihad” on our streets, I ban them. He invoices them.’
Good point. Decent soundbite. But lost today.
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