Kemi Badenoch upstaged on key Brexit fishing question at PMQs — by the SNP

is about to go back on pretty much every promise she’s ever made and unveil punishing cuts to services across all sectors in a matter of days. It will not be pretty. Britain is in a state of such anemic growth we’re pretty much on life support. Our farmers are still clogging up the streets of saying they can no longer afford to grow food to feed us. And treatment on the has become the new .

So, there was quite a lot to go at to make Prime Minster’s Questions actually worthy of the title today. So why chose to focus on — an area where, credit where it’s due, the Prime Minister has done unexpectedly well remains a mystery. Last week I suggested she was just badly briefed – but this week she could have been mistaken for one of those lickspittle backbench MPs Prime Ministers get to ask questions like “can the Prime Minister tell us why he is so wonderful?” She could actually have been mistaken for a Labour MP.

And yes kicked off proceedings with a quite well-judged riposte to crassest of the crass JD Vance and his accusation Britain “has not fought a war for 30 or 40 years”.

The PM simply read out the names of the six servicemen who lost their lives 13 years ago in Afghanistan – while supporting the American incursion there in the wake of 9/11. Britain being the first and only nation to invoke NATO’s Article 5 and go to the aid of a fellow member which had come under attack.

I guess that’s what allies do Mr Vance. Or used to at any rate.

(Vance was brilliantly dismissed by former Royal Marine Ben McBean in today’s Daily Express as “a Muppet gobbing off”. Ben lost two limbs in Afghanistan after stepping on a Taliban landmine in 2008. Of course, he was soldiering for a country which “has not fought a war for 30 or 40 years” Mr Vance).

Anyway, the point is that Trump, Vance and was always going to be Starmer’s steady ground – and it’s almost idiomatic that there is cross-party consensus during PMQs.

So Kemi should have acknowledged it, honoured our servicemen and women, then moved on! To subjects which are being given an easy ride because the noise around Trump is so fantastically loud.

Instead it was left to an array of backbenchers to remind us that, or not, Trump or not, Putin or not, life goes on, as it must, in this country.

So we had Marie Tidball (Lab Penistone and Stocksbridge) reminding us that 48 children had been killed after our shamefully idiotic courts allowed abusive parents access to them.

We had David Davis (Con Goole and Pocklington) pointing out that during an inquiry into alleged historic unlawful killings in Northern Ireland “more than 100 Special Forces soldiers have been summoned and not one IRA leader”.

He added: “Soldiers who served our country with honour and skill are being punished in their declining years for doing nothing but carrying out their duty.”

We had Helena Dollimore (Lab Hastings and Rye) socking it to the loathesome water company bosses besmirching our green and pleasant land with sh** so their bonuses can remain untouched.

“We are fed-up of the constant failings of Southern Water dumping sewage in our sea, flooding and leaving us without water for days, while taking huge bonuses,” said the feisty Ms D.

But for my money the issue of the day came from Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East MP) who pointed out that almost a decade after voting to leave the EU British fishermen were still in thrall to EU quotas for our own fish.

Sir Keir told us “we have already secured over 720,000 tonnes of fishing quota worth up to £920m after agreements with the EU and Norway.”

But why are we STILL kowtowing to Brussels over our own fish?!

I think THAT is a question which needs answering.

Now that, Kemi, might have been the pony to bet on today.