Angela Rayner was in her full Vickie Pollard mode at PMQs this afternoon, “yeah but no but yeah, and anyway Rachel Reeves told me Rishi Sunak did it and ran away…” She was an embarrassment to British political life. Any foreign dignitary watching must have thought “my god what has happened to Great Britain?”
I know I did. In nine days’ time this shambolic Labour government will have been in power for one full year. Yet Rayner and her sidekick Keir Starmer refuse to take responsibility for anything. And have you got the faintest idea what they believe in? The first clue? No me neither.
And this is because they never ever answer a straight question. And in Parliament that is the same as lying. And of course they have all the backbone, moral clarity and intellectual clout of the aforementioned Vickie Pollard. Cutting winter fuel allowance is a great idea, oh hang on no, it’s a terrible idea; cutting PIP is a great idea, no hang on it’s a terrible idea; the two-child benefit cap is a great idea, oh hang on… you’ll be getting the idea by now.
And do we Brits support Israel and the US over Iran? We’ll just never know…Usually it is spine-made-of-wet-spaghetti Starmer who ducks accountability at PMQs. But today it was Angela Rayner’s non-answers, and her special mix of arrogance, class malevolence, and thick-as-a-breezeblock stupidity, which insulted every voter in this country, no matter what their political stripe.
But here’s the big takeaway from today’s PMQs. Tax rises – big, big, big tax rises – are on the way this autumn. How else is this Government going to pay for its daily U-turns, its inability to cut spending literally anywhere, and Rachel Reeves’s mental giveaway of a spring statement? Oh then there’s the defence spending Keir is signing us up to at the NATO summit as I type.
Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride, a sort of bastard child of Willie Whitelaw and Kenneth Baker, was standing-in for Kemi Badenoch – and a very reasonable fist he made of it. Stride has that rarest of qualities, which the benches on either side are almost devoid of these days, in that he has a semblance of gravitas. He really comes over like an old 80s Thatcherite Big Beast.
Rayner treats PMQs like a joke – literally peppering her replies with nasty class-war sideswipes rather than addressing the question. But Stride is difficult to ruffle. “Every respected economist says tax-rises are inevitable in the autumn,” he levelled at Rayner across the despatch box, “after the budget the Chancellor said ‘I am not coming back for more taxes’. “Can the Right Honourable Lady give that certainty now and repeat to this house the Chancellor’s promise not to raise taxes?”
She couldn’t. Instead she blathered on about some stuff that happened under the Tories in what now seems like a long, long time ago. We don’t care what happened then Angela, we care what happens next. And it’s not looking good. As per, PMQs was littered with ar**-clenchingly awful fawning, statements from Rayner’s own MPs about just how wonderful our Ange is and frankly how lucky we are to have her.
Sureena Brackenbridge (Lab Wolverhampton North East) was probably today’s prime nose-in-the-cleft offender asking Rayner to outline “what plans Labour had to put more money in parent’s pockets?” I think I could actually see her soul corroding as she spat the words out.
If Rayner had any decency she would have replied “money in their pockets? Are you mad! We are the Labour Party – we spend and we tax, frankly it’s all we know how to do. Those parents need to grit their teeth and strap themselves in, because we’re about to squeeze ‘em till the pips squeak.”
But she didn’t – she just did her usual schtick “you know that Rishi Sunak, well, he was, like, really bad anyway…” Tory MP for Fylde Andrew Snowden provided possibly the most accurate and truthful moments of this week’s PMQs when he asked who Rayner would bin in the imminent reshuffle?
“Chancellor Rachel Reeves – for killing economic growth? The Work and Pensions Secretary – for the botched handling of the welfare bill and winter fuel cuts? The Environment Secretary – for trying to destroy British family farms? The Foreign Secretary – for giving away British sovereign territory? Or perhaps the Prime Minister – for having the worst first year in British political history?”
It was an accurate assessment and as we approach this Labour Party’s first anniversary of that massive landslide, it served as a report card detailing just how dreadful their first 12 months have been for Britain.
