Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Why is Keir Starmer so bad at PMQs?

Keir Starmer (photo: Jessica Taylor / Parliament)

Sir Keir is having a wobble. That’s obvious. The Labour leader holds an equestrian title, so he naturally feels at home on his high horse. Today at PMQs he loftily commanded Boris not to raise taxes in the budget. That was hilarious. A Labour leader begging a Tory Prime Minister not to implement Labour policy. If Sir Keir had produced a viola from his trousers and played ‘Waltzing Matilda’ he couldn’t have looked more ridiculous. Boris was so stunned that he could barely speak.

‘Well, I don’t know about you Mr Speaker,’ he bumbled. Then he pointed out that in 2019 Sir Keir had ‘stood on a manifesto to put up taxes by the biggest amount in the history of this country.’

Sir Keir is not only bad at PMQs but he appears to hire bad advisers and to listen to them very closely. Two weeks ago he surprised everyone with a sharp, nimble performance but today he relapsed into his old speechifying ways. He likes to cite every single government blunder and he delivers his dressing-down in a petulant, tinny, ‘not-good-enough’ moan, like a gym teacher berating a useless hockey-team.

Why does no one tell him to change his style and rhythm? Do it differently. Stick to a single issue. Keep his questions brief to starve his enemy of thinking-time. And break up his six queries into two bursts of three rather than asking them all in a single block. That might unsettle the PM. But Boris is so well-attuned to Sir Keir’s clippety-cloppety Shire-horse methods that he rarely shows any concern, let alone anxiety, at the despatch-box. When the Labour leader brought up a list of ancient controversies, including the Garden Bridge fiasco, Boris didn’t even lift his eyes from his notes.

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