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Prime minister’s questions: a shouty, jeery, very occasionally useful advert for British politics. Here’s what you need to know from the latest session in POLITICO’s weekly run-through.
What they sparred about: This week’s session started out with jousting over who does better on combating the cost of living — with rows over renting, homeownership, and jobs leading a domestic-heavy charge from the two leaders.
Labour leader Keir Starmer had an ace up his sleeve after the failed Conservative candidate for the Mid-Bedfordshire by-election shared a post that said out-of-work parents who are financially struggling should “fuck off.” Starmer said the poor chap was “simply following party lines.” Sunak pushed through, pointing to measures he has put in place to help people with energy bills, mortgage payments, and to spur house building.
First bit of shade thrown: In welcoming the actual new MP for Mid Bedfordshire, Labour’s Alistair Strathern, Keir Starmer said the newbie had “defied the odds,” as well as the “fantasy Lib Dem bar charts.”
Second bit of shade thrown: Rishi Sunak suggested Strathern “may actually support me a little bit more than the last” MP for the seat — one Nadine Dorries, Boris Johnson’s Conservative cheerleader-in-chief.
Biggest cheer of the day: Came from the Labour benches in response to Keir Starmer saying of voters: “They’ve heard the government telling them to f- off, and they want the chance to return the compliment.” Sunak wasn’t exactly going to say “oh, go on then,” but triggering an election would have been a decent newsline at least.
Sombre calls: Although this week’s PMQs were as jeery and shouty as usual, the ongoing conflict in the Middle East moved the energy from boisterous to somber. In asking if the prime minister plans to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the SNP’s Mhairi Black said without one “we risk putting petrol on a fire in a place that only requires a spark to ignite.”
Party line: Sunak responded to the calls by talking up “specific pauses as distinct from a ceasefire.” That puts him on the same page as U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken overnight. Starmer — who is meeting Muslim MPs and peers after the PMQs session — faces his own pressure to back a ceasefire.
You’d hear a pin drop: Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi read an email from a constituent with family in Gaza, which said “we are being massacred relentlessly, both homes are being destroyed, no water, no food, no electricity.” The MP said: “This is collective punishment of the Palestinian people in Gaza, for a crime they did not commit. How many more innocent Palestinians must die before this prime minister calls for humanitarian ceasefire?”
Totally non-scientific scores on the doors: A mixed PMQs. The prime minister gets a 6/10 since he managed the impossible: making the whole house laugh. Starmer gets 5/10 — He seemed buoyed by recent by-elections and is clearly jubilant from the polls. But his day could be about to get a whole lot harder amid mounting pressure over Gaza.
