There was little in the way of festive spirit in the final PMQs showdown of 2024 – aside from Ed Davey’s shoutout to the Bath Philharmonia Young Carers’ Choir, who have collaborated with the Lib Dem leader on his charity Christmas single.
Kemi Badenoch had her pick of open goals this week: the anger over the government’s decision not to compensate the so-called Waspi women over pension changes, the continued row over the Chagos islands deal, Labour’s China policy, and Keir Starmer’s looming “reset” with the EU. She pursued a scattergun approach and missed all of them.
The Tory leader was met with gasps and looks of dismay from her own benches with her first question, which seemed to set up a fierce attack on the government for having “played politics with the Waspi women”, only to swerve into a screeching U-turn and crow that Labour ministers now “admit we were right all along”. In other words, for all their performative fury this week, the Conservatives had no intention of compensating the Waspi women either. Which we all knew, but it was helpful for Badenoch to remind the House of it so clearly anyway. (A far more powerful intervention on the Waspi women came from the Mother of the House, Diane Abbott, later on.)
Badenoch stayed clear of China and the Chagos islands too, retreating to more familiar attack lines: the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners and the increase in employers national insurance.
She tried to goad the Prime Minister with several questions on how many people had applied for pension credit in light of the winter fuel announcement, which Starmer simply dodged. He clearly knows this is an area of real weakness for the government (polling from More In Common shows the winter fuel allowance change is an issue that is not only highly unpopular but also highly salient in voters’ minds), so he had his defence to Badenoch ready: reminding her that her shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, this month warned the triple-lock on state pensions was “unsustainable”. Stride is almost certainly right, of course. But his comments handed Labour a handy retort that pensioners (the most cossetted voter demographic in British politics), for all their anger at Labour, are not safe with the Tories, which Starmer employed enthusiastically today. Badenoch must be aware of what her shadow chancellor has been saying recently, but she seemed utterly unprepared.
On the economy, we saw Badenoch persist in her attempts to brand the rise in employer NI a “jobs tax”. That’s a line the Tories feel much more comfortable on, especially given the disappointing economic news at late. The Conservative leader’s strongest moment was probably “the economy is shrinking, inflation is going up, and jobs are being lost because of his Budget”, which set Starmer off into his usual tailspin about the mess left by the last government and the £22bn black hole.
And she got a few a laughs from her benches for her accusation that “the Prime Minister needs to misrepresent me to make his point” – although just as many from the opposite side of the House, no doubt more than aware of Badenoch’s penchant for accusing others of misquoting her when they repeat her own words back to her on, say, maternity pay. Overall, she seemed out of her depth, and her performance was both chaotic and rather undignified. Starmer, for his part, once again channelled his inner Rishi Sunak to argue that while his opponents “carp from the sidelines talking this country down, this government is getting on the with the job”. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
If this sounds like a somewhat anticlimactic showdown on which to end the year, it was. There was almost as much attention on Nigel Farage, fresh from his Mar-a-Lago love-in with Elon Musk, as there was on Badenoch struggling at the despatch box. And he didn’t even ask a question. Once again, the Reform leader managed to dominate PMQs without speaking. No doubt he was thinking of all the ways he could spend the money Musk might be considering donating. As parliament rises for Christmas, Tory MPs will be trekking home wondering if their new leader really has what it takes to see off the threat from a freshly moneyed Reform party while at the same time landing blows on Labour when there seem to be so many weak spots. Today’s performance was not inspiring.
[See also: Why aren’t the Greens doing better?]
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