The House of Commons today looked as if Madame Tussaud had created waxworks of every Labour MP and packed her creations onto the green benches. The men and women behind Sir Keir Starmer sat in visceral discomfort as Kemi Badenoch launched a line of attack she knew would hurt.
“Does the Prime Minister now admit,” she began, “that he was wrong to remove the winter fuel payment from millions of pensioners?”
This is the equivalent of sitting down to Christmas dinner with a family and bringing up their scandalous secret about what happened to grandmother. The decision to scrap universal entitlement to the benefit is considered one of the key reasons why Labour lost 187 councillors in last week’s election drubbing.
The PM had almost certainly spent the morning in barrister mode, preparing to defend his controversial trade deal with India. Instead, the Tory leader kept challenging him on perhaps the most controversial decision of his premiership.
Mrs Badenoch reminded him of the scale of internal opposition to the cut before delivering the soundbite: “Pensioners are poorer and colder because of his decisions.”
This is not a policy that Labour MPs enjoy defending on the doorstep as their pained expressions showed. But the Tories benches hardly looked a zone of glee.
The Conservative tally of councillors crashed by 674 last week and the most recent YouGov poll puts their party on a miserable 17%, behind both Labour (22%) and Reform (29%).
Reform’s cadre of MPs has grown from four to five after Sarah Pochin beat Labour by six votes in the Runcorn and Helsby. This group of MPs looked the cheeriest in the chamber.
They looked thoroughly entertained when Mrs Badenoch attacked Sir Keir on net zero – one of their favourite talking points. Winning 677 councillors and two mayoralties last week has only heightened their hopes that before too long Nigel Farage will be standing at a despatch box as PM.