Keir Starmer has been quite an irritable – and irritating at times – performer in the Commons as prime minister. His sessions with Kemi Badenoch in particular have been marked by pompous lectures about how she should be conducting Prime Minister’s Questions, along with lofty comments about the ‘spirit in which’ the opposition has been behaving. Starmer hasn’t seen anything wrong with this attitude because he made the fatal mistake early on of buying his own hype about what a committed and decent public servant he is, rather than being anxious about whether he was actually meeting his own standards. This means that he seems genuinely appalled by any question that suggests he is in fact not meeting those standards. 

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However, the most irritating comments at his final Commons appearance didn’t come from the outgoing Prime Minister himself, but a Labour MP. Melanie Onn immediately followed Badenoch and said: ‘It is an emotional Prime Minister’s Question Time today, and I really welcome the tone that has been struck. I think we should hear more........

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