Readers of a more delicate constitution may wish to look away now as you are unlikely to ever unsee this – but Sir Keir Starmer was laid bare at Prime Minister’s Questions today and it became glaringly apparent he had no balls.
Time after time after time he simply refused to answer perfectly reasonable questions – because to do so he would have had to put his non-existent cojones on the line and take a stance.
So we had:
Why is this Government cancelling its own pensioners’ winter fuel allowance while paying £18bn to Mauritius to needlessly give away the vital British sovereign territory of the Chagos islands?
No answer.
Why did the Government withdraw its own lawyers in the case against the “eco-nutters” opposing Britain’s (vital again) Rosebank oil and gas fields?
No answer.
Why is this Government spending £8bn on the “vanity project” GB Energy, which the leader of the opposition pointed out would lead to a mere 1000 jobs in 20 years time, rather than securing the 200,000 jobs already existing in the oil and gas sector?
No answer.
Would the Prime Minister relay his extreme concerns to the White House over President Trump’s shock announcement the US wants to annex the Gaza Strip?
No answer.
Did either the Prime Minister or his voice coach (stop laughing at the back) break Covid lockdown rules in 2020?
No answer.
And that’s just for starters.
Serious, important questions, responded to with either unintelligible waffle or simply no answer at all.
It’s an insult to the British public and an insult to democracy. Not that this government gives a flying one what you, the British public, thinks. Almost every move it has made since election night has been the wrong one – it is a Government clinically incapable of reading the room.
A wriggling Sir Keir attempted to come over all tight-lipped George Smiley over the Chagos Islands issue, trying to suggest there may be some matter of national security at stake. There is! We are giving away a crucial military base used jointly with the USA as a bulwark largely against an increasingly belligerent China. A China which will be installed in Diego Garcia before the end of the decade if we go through with this insanity.
Fortunately we won’t because Trump will stop it and that will be that.
To her credit Kemi Badenoch, still finding her feet at PMQs, did at least smash this one home.
“This is an immoral surrender so north London lawyers can boast to their dinner party guests,” she told, er, the north London lawyer.
But Nigel Farage (who has to put up with ill mannered loutishness from both blue and red MPs like no other member in that house), took it a step further.
Farage correctly pointed out there is absolutely no basis in international law for the UK to supinely give up the Chagos Islands and said: “How do I tell my constituent 99-year-old Jim O’Dwyer, who was a tail-end-Charlie in a Lancaster bomber that he is losing his winter fuel allowance while at the same time we are prepared to give away a sovereign territory to Mauritius and pay £18bn for the privilege?”
And yet again there was absolutely no answer from the Prime Minister.
Instead he deflected with a list of ridiculous claims – “We’ve got the highest investment for 19 years, we’re the second-best place in the world to invest, wages are up and inflation is down,” he said.
Did I miss something?
Are your wages up? You feeling the warm glow of this Government’s economic sure-footedness?
No me neither.
“How can we believe a word he says?” asked Kemi, reasonably enough.
Me? I’m still more troubled by what he doesn’t say, the deafening silence on matters of real serious import to the future of this country.
Or the future of your life and your kids’ lives if you prefer.
Best laugh of the day by the way was Keir opining across the floor: “All she does is come here every week carping from the sidelines and talking this country down.”
It was crying out for the punchline “Doesn’t she know that’s our job?”
Elsewhere much hilarity as John Slinger (Lab Rugby) tried to have a pop at Nigel Farage’s eminently reasonable (and logically flawless) contention that those able to pay for health treatment probably should do so. Practically stamping his foot he said the NHS should be free for everyone when they need it.
Writing this piece as a man on an NHS waiting list so long they won’t even give me an appointment date, presumably because I may have died of old age before then, I allowed myself a grim smirk.
Oh, and Keir’s confirmation that even those Brits willing and able to pay would NEVER have to pay on his watch probably told you everything you need to know about his party’s deathwish.
There was one highpoint in all this misery however and that was when Northern Ireland Alliance MP for Langan Valley (and resident House hottie and advert for nominative determinism) Scorcha Eastwood got to her feet.
She has such a deliciously authentic Belfast accent I have absolutely no idea what she said but she said it with such an incandescent passion she’d get my vote every day of the week. Seriously, if you could just bottle that and spread it liberally around the more flaccid members of this illustrious house Britain would be out of intensive care in no time.