Kemi Badenoch tried two ambushes at PMQs. She lambasted Sir Keir Starmer for cutting the winter fuel allowance and leaving old folks to shiver through the coldest months of the year. But Sir Keir claimed that he was merely trying to stabilise the economy. Kemi accused him of balancing the books ‘on the backs of pensioners.’
Sir Keir Starmer blamed his favourite cavity at PMQs, the ‘black hole’
Good start. Kemi has waited a long time to lead on this issue and the clamour of dissent grows daily. She read out a list. The mayor of Doncaster, the Welsh first minister and various grumble-bunnies on Labour’s backbenches are united against the cut to pensioners’ payments.
‘When is he going to listen to his own party,’ asked Kemi. ‘And change course?’
Sir Keir is probably weighing up his options. For now, he’s not budging. If he were replaced, his successor would restore the fuel allowance on Day One. That’s obvious.
Sir Keir blamed his favourite cavity, the ‘black hole’. He pretended that NHS funding was dependent on grabbing money from pensioners.
Kemi might have punched this bruise a few more times but instead she shifted to net zero. She said that Britain has ‘the second highest amount of renewable energy in Europe’ and the ‘highest bills.’ That speaks for itself. She used Tony Blair’s words, ‘irrational and doomed to fail,’ to undermine Sir Keir’s attachment to net zero. Sure enough, Sir Keir used Kemi’s words to undermine Kemi. For some reason, she hadn’t anticipated this move. He recited one of her many gushing statements about net zero as a way to ‘future-proof’ our energy supply.
‘We believe in green trade and investment,’ he quoted her as saying. Then he turned to her quizzically. ‘She’s got a reputation for straight talking. She was right then.’
She had no answer. And that was it. Whoosh! The entire issue of net zero went zinging across the aisle and landed in the laps of Reform.
The Tories and Labour can bicker over the wreckage, but the topic will never be theirs. Green energy is making us colder, poorer and angrier. And neither of the main parties has a shred of credibility on the subject.
The SNP’s Stephen Flynn is also feeling the sting of net zero. The UK’s biggest oil and gas producer, Harbour Energy, has just cut 250 jobs in his constituency. He asked why Sir Keir isn’t fighting as hard for these employees as he did for the steel workers in Scunthorpe.
Sir Keir skated around the issue and accused Flynn of using the 250 sackings to ‘distract from the disastrous record’ of the SNP government. He said that ‘one in six Scots are stuck on NHS waiting lists.’ Sir Keir is correct to suggest that Scotland is on the slide. Ayr MP, Elaine Stewart, revealed that her namesake, Rod Stewart, is using his own cash to help Scots ‘get the care they need.’
Sir Keir’s answer to Scotland’s woes sounded illogical. He accused the SNP of ruining their own country, but he also boasted that he’d awarded them ‘the biggest budget settlement since devolution.’ Why so generous? Unless waste is his priority.
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