Meanwhile, the Lib Dems’ Gentleman Ed rips into Starmer for staying silent on The Donald’s US security strategy
W
ith little more than a week to go until the Christmas recess, the Commons is in festive overdrive. Demob happy. A few minutes in to the year’s penultimate prime minister’s questions with MPs from both sides shouting and cheering, the speaker interrupted proceedings to say: “We don’t need the panto auditions any more.” To which the natural response was: “Ooh yes we do.” Because that’s pretty much the whole purpose of PMQs at the best of times. A feelgood experience for some. A feelbad experience for others. Noise with no substance.
No one embraces the panto spirit more than Kemi Badenoch. Kemi has come to realise that the bar is actually quite low for her to remain as Tory leader. All she has to do is be a little bit better than Keir Starmer at PMQs. Which is turning out to be a lot less difficult than she imagined. Sometimes just standing up is enough.
Though being good at PMQs does nothing to shift the polls – the Tories are still tanking behind Labour – it does wonders for the morale of her backbenchers. And they are the men and women keeping her in a job. If you had suggested that Kemi might last longer than Keir just six months ago, you would have got long odds. But now she’s an odds on favourite. It’s still unlikely she will be Tory leader at the next election, but that’s a long way off. And Kemi isn’t that bothered. She’s happy to bank whatever wins she can get. For almost the first time in her life, her confidence is not entirely misplaced.
