PMQs sketch: Starmer goes on the attack
It would have been a tall order for Keir Starmer to mess up this week’s shouting match with the prime minister.
Few politicos would have had an escaped terror suspect cycling around west London or an alleged Chinese spy in Parliament on their pre-conference bingo cards.
And in fairness to the former chief prosecutor, he certainly made the most of the hand he’d been dealt, calling out Sunak and his government for the “blood on their hands” over the crisis in the justice system, before tearing into him over security fears.
The prime minister, meanwhile, could only resort to the insults of yesteryear.
Prison escapes were “almost ten times higher” under the last Labour government, Sunak remonstrated, even awkwardly echoing back Starmer’s own “playing catch up” jibe.
Sadly for “inaction man”, while a valid argument, this defence diminishes in effectiveness with every year that passes since that administration of (*checks notes*) 13 years ago.
That’s long enough ago for a child born in 2005 to have started and completed primary and secondary school before Gillian Keegan started swearing about crumbling concrete ceilings.
Riding high though, Starmer continued to build up his case.
The prime minister, he sighed, was “so at odds with lived experience in the real world” – a lawyer’s way of gently suggesting he was not doing a “f—ing good job”.
Moving onto migration, previously shaky ground for his party, he showed Labour was firmly planting its feet onto their opponents turf.
“He is failing to stop terrorists strolling out of prison, failing to guard Britain against hostile actors, he is completely failing to stop the boats. How can anyone trust him to protect the country?” Starmer huffed.
And then, mark your calendars, the moment arrived. “No one voted for this shambles,” the Labour leader reminded MPs.
“No one voted for him. How much more damage do the British public have to put up with before he finally finds the stomach to give them a say?”
Sound the klaxons: with frontbench in place, corporate donations rolling in and conference just weeks away, the long-awaited (if unofficial) general election campaign has begun.