Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was a classic knockabout between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer clearly written by their respective attack units. Both came armed with the sort of material you’d expect for a scrap: the Labour leader had a ‘rare unsigned copy’ of Liz Truss’s book, while the Prime Minister wanted to talk about Angela Rayner’s tax affairs. There were the familiar lines, too, including Sunak reminding the Commons of Starmer defending Hizb ut-Tahrir, and Starmer talking about his legal expertise.
The first question from Starmer was whether Sunak had met anyone with a mortgage who agreed with Truss that her mini-budget was the ‘happiest moment of her premiership’. Labour MPs laughed, while the Prime Minister responded that his counterpart should spend less time reading ‘that book’, and more time looking into his deputy’s tax advice.
Starmer did mount a defence of Rayner: he said a ‘billionaire prime minister’ whose family had managed to avoid tax was ‘smearing a working class woman’. He then listed the people Truss had blamed for her failure, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Daily Star lettuce.
Of course, the Conservative brand has been severely damaged by Truss’s short premiership, and Labour will do everything it can to remind people of it (when Truss isn’t doing it for them). But Sunak is in the fortunate position of having warned repeatedly about the consequences of Truss’s policies before she went ahead with them. He could then tell MPs that he had disagreed with Truss at the time:
‘Everyone knows that two years ago I wasn’t afraid to repeatedly warn about what her economic policies would lead to, even if it wasn’t what people wanted to hear at the time. Mr Speaker, I was right then, but I’m also right now when I say that his economic policies would be a disaster for Britain. He would send inflation up, mortgages up, taxes up and working people would pay the price.’
The most interesting answer came when George Galloway asked (predictably) about Israel
Starmer pursued the Truss line again, asking ‘when is he going to learn the lesson from his predecessor’s mistakes’ and tell the Chamber where the money was coming from for his own tax cuts. So Sunak went further in the comparison between him and Starmer, reminding everyone that the present Labour leader didn’t just have a problematic predecessor in Jeremy Corbyn: he had also backed Corbyn to lead the country: ‘Not once but twice, he tried to make his predecessor prime minister, despite him opposing Nato and Trident, ignoring anti-Semitism and siding with our enemies. It’s clear what he did. He put his own interests ahead of Britain’s!’ It was a potent comeback.
The next exchange between the two men was over how Sunak would fund his plan to abolish National Insurance (in fairness, not something he is actually doing yet, but a long-term ambition).
Sunak then went local, listing all the examples of Labour administrations around the UK putting up taxes, as well as a selective quote of a Starmer interview with the Sun where he talked about hiking taxes. The Labour leader replied: ‘No single politician has ever put tax up more times than he has!’
Starmer then criticised Sunak for not ruling out ‘cutting the NHS or state pensions to pay for scrapping National Insurance – I was a lawyer long enough to know when someone is avoiding the question’. Sunak said he made ‘absolutely no apology about wanting to end the unfairness of the double tax on work’, and then quoted a new adviser to the Labour party who thought supporting pensioners was a ‘complete disgrace’.
Much of the ensuing session was unremarkable. The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn always has beautifully-written questions, but this week he was busy attacking Labour rather than Sunak himself, which shows how anxious the nationalists are about the threat of a resurgent Scottish Labour.
Others wanted to talk a lot about Teesside, which is a key battleground in the local elections. The most interesting answer came when George Galloway asked (predictably) about Israel. He wanted to know how the Prime Minister’s call with Benjamin Netanyahu went yesterday, and what he would do if his advice wasn’t taken. Sunak responded:
‘I was pleased to speak with prime minister Netanyahu, who thanked the UK for their support of Israel’s security over the weekend. We also discussed the situation and how Iran is isolated on the world stage, and also I made the point to him that significant escalation is not in anyone’s interest and it’s a time for calm heads to prevail. I also reiterated our concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, I welcome the statements and commitments that the I govt have made about significantly increasing aid into Gaza and now we need to see those commitments delivered.’
He didn’t, of course, say what he would do if his advice was ignored.
Sunak had a strong comeback to Starmer’s Truss attack at PMQs
7
1
17.04.2024
Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was a classic knockabout between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer clearly written by their respective attack units. Both came armed with the sort of material you’d expect for a scrap: the Labour leader had a ‘rare unsigned copy’ of Liz Truss’s book, while the Prime Minister wanted to talk about Angela Rayner’s tax affairs. There were the familiar lines, too, including Sunak reminding the Commons of Starmer defending Hizb ut-Tahrir, and Starmer talking about his legal expertise.
The first question from Starmer was whether Sunak had met anyone with a mortgage who agreed with Truss that her mini-budget was the ‘happiest moment of her premiership’. Labour MPs laughed, while the Prime Minister responded that his counterpart should spend less time reading ‘that book’, and more time looking into his deputy’s tax advice.
Starmer did mount a defence of Rayner: he said a ‘billionaire prime minister’ whose family had managed to avoid tax was ‘smearing a working class woman’. He then listed the people Truss had blamed for her failure, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Daily Star lettuce.
Of course, the Conservative........
© The Spectator
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Andrew Mitrovica
Mort Laitner
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
