This was Rishi Sunak’s penultimate PMQs against Keir Starmer – his last will be the warm-up act just before the Budget next week. Then days later the Conservative Party will announce its new leader on 2 November.
So perhaps it was understandable it had a valedictory feel. This was another week full of open goals for the Conservatives: the continued row over a police escort for Taylor Swift in August (proving my rule that any chance to put Taylor Swift in a headline will be seized upon until all the sense is wrung out it), the embarrassment of No 10 slapping down the transport secretary for her attack on P&O just before the government’s big investment summit, and of course the fevered speculation of increasing employers National Insurance and debate over whether that would constitute a manifesto betrayal. You might have expected Sunak to go hard on the last one in particular, given his semi-win in last week’s PMQs when he pressed Starmer to rule it out and was rewarded with a non-committal answer.
Instead, Sunak took the statesmanlike approach. All six of his questions regarded foreign policy, specifically the need for Britain to stand up to China. Sunak raised Chinese military exercises in the Taiwan strait and the plight of UK citizen Jimmy Lai who is being detained in Hong Kong, in light of the foreign secretary’s trip to Beijing this week. This is a rare area of cross-party consensus: the questions gave Starmer the opportunity to tell the chamber “I hope this is an issue where we can have unity across the House,” later adding “We speak with one voice.”
There were still moments of tension. When Sunak accused the Prime Minister of halting the implementation of the foreign agents registration scheme set in motion by the last government, Starmer replied “That is not correct” and promptly sat down. Rarely is such a succinct and direct answer given in PMQs. Expect furious briefing clarifying the matter from both camps. Starmer also berated Sunak for trying to score political points on a national security issue, to howls and jeers in the House.
Sunak maintained his dignity, helped by the last question: he pressed the Starmer and David Lammy to commit to telling the Chinese government to lift its sanctions on British MPs, met with cries of “hear, hear” on both benches. Starmer replies “Yes”, but then took the somewhat bizarre decision to try to shoehorn his familiar rant about the last 14 years of “failure” from the Tories and Labour being elected to “give Britain its future back”. It was both repetitive and a complete non-sequitur. Prime Ministers always arrive at PMQs with a list of talking points they want to hit (Sunak certainly used to when the roles were reversed), but they are usually woven with at least an attempt at subtlety.
In a decidedly low-energy session, it was an awkward and bathetic ending to the head-to-head. Still, Starmer will be breathing a sigh of relief that the expected landmines were avoided. As for Tory MPs, last week I wrote that the big winner for another stalemate PMQs was Kemi Badenoch, who certainly would not have pulled her punches. It was a similar story today, though even the less actively confrontational Robert Jenrick would have landed more blows than Sunak did. The former PM is cementing his legacy as a reasoned, thoughtful leader able to rise above petty politics when needed. His party might be more frustrated at the missed opportunities.
[See also: The BBC is foolish to axe HARDtalk]
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