Sir Keir Starmer is vulnerable but Kemi Badenoch fails to take advantage at PMQs
Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) are seldom easy for the PM. The weekly inquisition in the bearpit of the Commons have caught out many Premiers in the past. But the opprobrium Sir Keir Starmer faced at PMQs will have been doubly painful given the majority his party secured not long ago and the chaos that they were greeted with on the opposite benches.
That is no longer the case. It is not the Tories that are the party of chaos. Rather chaos has enveloped the Government.
While Sir Keir once stood for standards in public life, he now rightly stands accused of hypocrisy. His poor judgement on everything from the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US to the elevation of former head of communications Matthew Doyle to the House of Lords, has left him clinging on by his fingernails.
Despite this, the leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch failed to land any significant blows on Sir Keir at PMQs. Her lacklustre display in the Commons another reminder of why so many no longer view the Conservatives as the Opposition and instead look to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as the alternative.
The clamour for the Prime Minister to quit must be counterbalanced with caution. While Sir Keir Starmer and his Government have squandered at warp speed the faith the British public put in them at the previous general election, there is no clear alternative within Labour ranks to lead the country over the next few years.
The Machiavellian manoeuvres that sidelined Andy Burnham last month have weakened Labour while simultaneously leaving the PM more vulnerable, with the party looking increasingly likely to lose the Gorton and Denton by-election.