See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy QUENTIN LETTS, PARLIAMENTARY SKETCHWRITER Published: 17:27 BST, 24 June 2026 | Updated: 17:30 BST, 24 June 2026
Starmer versus Kemi is old potatoes. Welcome to a more thrilling and even dirtier bout: Kemi versus scratchy, scary Bridget Phillipson. Ding ding!Seconds out. Surgical aprons on, mes braves.At PMQs the initial focus had been on Sir Keir making his first Commons appearance since resigning. In he bumbled with the soapy beam of a dribbler expecting everyone to be kind. He had, after all, done the decent thing and surrendered. Even blubbed a bit. People wouldn't be beastly now. Would they?Kemi would. But not to him. She instead savaged the Cabinet ministers who 'betrayed' the nasal knight (Reeves and Miliband) and those who were 'loyal and incompetent'. Such as Bridget, owner of the most infamous scowl since Nora Batty.A recent opinion poll of teachers had found that zero per cent of them thought Ms Phillipson was doing well. Mrs B, eyes twinkling, peered at Labour MPs and said, 'hands up if you think she's doing a good job'. Just two hesitant paws were raised. Mrs Badenoch noted that one of Bridget's miserable deeds had been whacking independent schools with VAT. Meanwhile, teacher numbers in state schools were down. 'Turns out appointing a spiteful class warrior as Education Secretary was a disaster,' she concluded.Aieee, you should have seen Labour's faces. They recoiled, necks stiffened, faces angled, mouths agape in shock. 'Spiteful class warrior'? You can't say that!Ms Phillipson was sitting on the front bench alongside Anna Turley, Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper. All four started snarling at Kemi at once. Four ravening griffins, protective of their nest. Ms Turley placed a consoling claw on Bridget's shoulder, defending her from this monstrous (but, ahem, entirely accurate) assault. Speaker Hoyle leapt in to the fray, asking for moderate language. Sir Keir said he was proud to have scary Bridget in his Cabinet because she had risen so far in life. And, perhaps, because had he tried to sack her she would have pecked his eyeballs, sucked his giblets from their sockets and done a cackling loop-the-loop on her broomstick.Mrs Badenoch smiled with pretend innocence, sending the Comrades even more tonto. That gap in her front teeth seemed to broaden as they gazed at it. Her satirical precis of recent political events was hard to witness at times without flinching, but it was deliciously funny, too. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch clashed with Bridget Phillipson during PMQs today The Education Secretary, centre, on the Labour front bench with Liz Kendall, left, and Anna Turley Ms Reeves was first to be scorched. Kemi noted that the Chancellor failed to attend Sir Keir's resignation speech but was only too happy to pose for Andy Burnham's selfie. Oucheroo. Ms Reeves glared. At such times you realise how wise we are not to have America's gun laws.Mrs B observed, next, that Sir Keir had been generous enough to revive Mr Miliband's Cabinet career, yet once things became sticky, Friend Ed repaid the favour by scooting off to Andy Burnham. 'It's not the first time he's betrayed someone close to him, is it?' laughed Mrs Badenoch. In the gallery that reference to Ed's fratricidal leanings won simultaneous burps of delight and exhalations of pain, the sort you hear when one pub fighter kicks another below the Plimsoll line.Sir Keir responded with lists of his achievements. Labour MPs cheered. Mrs Badenoch: 'If it's all going so fine, why are they cheering?' They stopped cheering.She noted that the people now egging him on were the same who had plunged '400 knives' into his back. 'Shame on them! Shame on them!' she hollered. They were giving up stodgy old Sir Keir for 'a pair of eyelashes and a black t-shirt' (ie, Brother Burnham, who, by the way, was absent from the session).Should Mrs Badenoch have been kinder? Her enemies will say so. But the sheer energy, the cheerful naughtiness, the jolting directness, was joyous. And why shouldn't she have a jab at those Cabinet toerags?PMQs ended. The scrap, we heard, did not. The two women clashed further behind the Speaker's Chair. Scary Bridget has finally met someone who isn't frightened of her.
