Sir Keir Starmer portrayed Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives as a zombie party when the two faced each other in the Commons.
“A once great political party is sliding into braindead oblivion,” he declared.
The Labour leader has reached for Nigel Farage’s playbook as he battles to prevent a Conservative recovery.
He wants you to think the Tories are a party in its death throes, no longer relevant to more Britain. This is how Reform UK has urged people to abandon the Conservative tribe and join their democratic insurgency.
Sir Keir – who does not try to disguise his irritation with Mrs Badenoch – snapped: “The project for them is over. They are sliding into oblivion. They are a dead party walking.”
Mr Farage could see what was happening. When he got the chance to jump to his feet he described Reform as a party which is “alive and kicking”.
Sir Keir may well relish the prospect of Reform splitting the right-wing vote at the next election in the hope it will allow Labour to win another term in power.
But even by the standards of Prime Minister’s Questions, this was harsh language. How did Mrs Badenoch get under her skin?
She raised the prospect of a nightmare event which could send Labour’s already dire polling figures through the floor. Mrs Badenoch wants you to fear that Labour is going to destroy your job.
Labour governments are doomed when they are blamed for lay-offs and growing dole queues.
The Conservative leader knows that families do not sit around the table and talk about changes in GDP. But they do worry if they think a loved one’s employer is in danger of going bust.
Mrs Badenoch used her question to point to rising unemployment since the election and warn that much worse could be to come.
She pointed to department store chain Beales shutting its last shop with a “Rachel Reeves closing down sale”.
“They survived two World Wars and the winter of discontent but they can’t survive this Labour Government.”
This riled the PM but he seemed particularly incensed when the Tory leader mocked his “tiny tariff deal” with the United States.
Sir Keir challenged her to visit Jaguar Land Rover workers, steelworkers and people in the whisky industry. But the Tory leader warned the combination of the National Insurance increase and the workers’ right overhaul she calls Labour’s “Unemployment Bill” will jeopardise jobs.
Mrs Badenoch knows the future of the Conservative depends on millions of voters seeing her party as the best defender of their livelihoods. But in the years leading up to the next general election, Labour and Reform will portray the Tories as a party teetering towards extinction; her challenge is to prove them wrong.