It’s the first Prime Minister’s Questions since conference season and Labour’s recent woes have given the leader of the opposition a rather lot of material. An energetic Rishi Sunak was fast to mock Sir Keir Starmer over tensions in his top team – in a dig at Starmer’s swapping out of chief of staff Sue Gray for Labour election guru Morgan McSweeney at the weekend.
‘Mr Speaker,’ Sunak began, ‘tomorrow the government will publish their anticipated changes to employment law. Given the weekend’s events, when did the Prime Minister first become a convert to “fire and rehire”?’
Ouch. It’s a touchy subject for the PM, not least because Gray’s allies have rather ferociously turned on him since the move. Ducking the question, Sir Keir instead launched into a monologue about tomorrow’s workers’ rights bill. Sunak tried again, this time taunting the PM over the frockgate scandal that has dogged the Labour government over the last few weeks: ‘When he talks about security at work, once again it’s one rule for him and another rule for everyone else.’ Or clothing at work, or designer glasses. The list goes on!
Starmer was then quizzed on his income tax plans included in the 30 October Budget – on which the PM dubbed the current Tory leader the ‘expert’s expert on raising taxes’ and parroted his line about Labour’s ‘commitment to not raising tax on working people’, insisting: ‘We are here to stabilise the economy, and we will do so.’ Er, that’s not quite an answer to a question about employer national insurance contributions, is it? Clearly Sunak didn’t think so either, snorting in response: ‘I don’t think even Lord Alli is buying any of that nonsense!’ The gag certainly touched some sort of nerve – not even Starmer managed to keep a straight face…
Watch the clip here:
Comments