Keir Starmer probably found it vaguely comforting that today’s Prime Minister’s Questions at least gave the impression that he is still making decisions in Downing Street – rather than focusing entirely on when he will leave the job. The Prime Minister still has the demeanour of a duck with mobility problems but found himself answering questions about sanctions on Russia when he faced Kemi Badenoch.
The Tory leader used her six questions to accuse Starmer of favouring Russian oil over granting new licences for drilling British oil in the North Sea, as well as accusing him once again of taking a ‘pompous’ and ‘patronising’ tone with her. She also tried to set up a narrative that the problem is not Starmer specifically but Labour, and that changing leader will only mean a new salesman, not new policies.
Starmer opened the session with a sweetener for the electorate and Labour MPs: he announced that the government would be giving hauliers a 12-month road tax holiday and extending the freeze in fuel duty for the rest of the year. Badenoch immediately described it as a ‘U-turn’ and joked that ‘it would make more sense if they just did what we were going to do because they get there in the end anyway’. She then turned in her next question to the sanctions decision, asking the Prime Minister to tell the Chamber ‘why oil from Russia is acceptable, but oil from Aberdeen is not?’
