OPINION
Kemi Badenoch has reached her PMQs nadir (Image: PA)
“Mr Speaker this is tedious!” blurted Sir Keir Starmer, rather taking the wind out of this sketchwriter’s sails.
Because it really was. Dull, dreary, arcane, local newspaper stuff for the most part – great for a headline in the Axminster Bugle or the Congleton Gazette but no help at all for anyone who wanted to know what this Government is really up to.
I mean, it’s not as if we are a nation on the brink of a catastrophic recession, facing unprecedented, unaffordable immigration, a never-ending cost-of-living crisis, propping up the laziest workforce this country has ever seen and about to come to blows with our premier trade partner and ally on the other side of the Atlantic, right? All under the auspices of a confederacy of dunces charged with running our country.
There’s a serious procedural point here of course – ’s performances at Prime Minister’s Questions are getting worse not better. And today was her nadir.
She should have learned the ropes by now and she should be holding Starmer’s feet to the flames every week, ruthlessly exposing the myriad of self-harming idiocies Starmer and his cohorts are inflicting on this nation of ours. It’s an open goal.
Keir Starmer branded Badenoch’s questions ‘tedious’ (Image: PA)
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But Badenoch needs much MUCH smarter briefing from her support staff. She kicked off PMQs with the story of the migrant using war legislation to settle his family in Britain. An outrageous story indeed, but Sir Keir killed the matter stone dead saying he agreed it was outrageous and his Home Secretary was looking at changing the law.
An excellent response and one which meant her ill-advised question had actually made the Labour man of straw suddenly look like a man of decisive action.
She’d been bested and she should have left well alone and moved on – but instead she kept banging on with the same question and each time she was made to look even more foolish.
She HAS to do better than this.
Only with her fifth question did Kemi finally hit a nerve mentioning Starmer’s jaw-dropping appointment of his buddy Lord Hermer as Attorney General. Now, Hermer may be a lovely fella and as British as they come – but his recent legal CV looks like the Christmas list of ISIS and .
He has represented such staunch advocates for Britain as ISIS traitor Shamima Begum, Irish republicanism’s favourite son Gerry Adams, and he is one of the brains behind Britain handing over the Chagos Islands and paying jaw dropping reparations for the privilege. And, talking of reparations, he has also advised Caribbean countries on how they might prize “trillions of pounds” in reparations from you and me.
A true Brit then.
Kemi accurately pointed out: “There are very serious questions now being asked about the Attorney General, who is the Prime Minister’s personal friend and donor.
“One Labour peer has called him ‘the archetype of the arrogant progressive fool’.”
But then she messed it all up by also bringing in the new Chief Inspector of Borders who she claimed “lives in Finland and wants to work from home”.
Because Strarmer quickly and brutally pointed out he had actually been working from home for five years under the … allowing him to ignore the more potent Attorney General question.
Another piece of catastrophically poor briefing for Kemi.
It was left to Ed Davey to do the actual grilling, which is the political equivalent of being savaged by a moth-eaten teddy bear.
Twitter response to Kemi’s disastrous performance was swift and brutal.
Tweeters talked of the “ritual weekly humiliation of Kemi Badenoch by ”, suggested “Like the guy or not Starmer still remains undefeated in PMQs” and perhaps most damningly of all “While Kemi Badenoch was going on and on pointless rants about the culture war – Ed Davey was looking after British industry.”
Ouch.
We are told Kemi hates doing media and interviews and ducks them whenever she can, preferring where possible to send B-list replacements.
But PMQs is not a thing to duck. It is where leaders, great leaders, stamp their authority on Government, whether they are in or out of power.
It is also where they shore-up support both in the House and on the streets of Britain.
If the Conservative Party is to have any hope of slapping down the existential threat from Reform Kemi needs to make everything else secondary to dominating the weekly Punch and Judy show that is PMQs.