1 week Ago By Tom Nicholson
Kemi Badenoch’s first Prime Minister’s Questions this week was remarkable in many ways, not least because it was a rare moment where Keir Starmer didn’t stumble over who was actually in charge. The Prime Minister has repeatedly referred to Rishi Sunak at these post-election sessions as “the prime minister” – an easy slip to make when the two spent more time with Sunak in power and Starmer in opposition, but also quite a telling one. Now, Badenoch is a break with that old dynamic.
But that doesn’t mean Starmer and his party won’t slip into the habit of talking as though she’s the one in power. Labour has been pretty energised by Badenoch’s election. She has that effect on people generally , whether or not they agree with her.
Starmer’s colleagues who prepare him for PMQs knew the sessions would be more unpredictable with Badenoch as leader than if Robert Jenrick had won the Conservative leadership contest, and made the exchanges even more of a conversation between two pieces of cardboard. Her unpredictability has also provided the Labour attack operation with plenty of ammunition. Does she believe maternity pay is “excessive”? Does she think the NHS deserves more money? Does she think workers deserve a higher minimum wage? Those were the questions levelled at the new leader just in her first week, and most were based on her habit of misquoting herself in live broadcast interviews.
At PMQs, Starmer and Labour colleagues repeatedly threw Badenoch’s words back at her and asked whether she supported this policy or that policy. Later in the week, Cabinet Office minister Ellie Reeves wrote to Badenoch about the Conservatives deciding “to vote against Labour’s plans to bring down waiting lists in the NHS and hire new teachers in state schools”, adding that given Badenoch had called on the Conservatives to “be honest”, could she “explain what public services you would cut instead”. Reeves was referring to the Tories voting against the tax measures in the Budget, including VAT on private school fees, stamp duty rises and the increased windfall tax on oil and gas producers.
It won’t be the last time that someone from the Labour frontbench sends that kind of letter. The party is working hard to frame Badenoch as someone who doesn’t care about workers or public services, and to try to push her into revealing more of her policies in the spontaneous way she often does when being interviewed. Read Next Lots more money for the NHS – but no plans for meaningful change It’s helpful for Starmer’s internal party management for him to have an opponent who doesn’t need to be caricatured to appear anathema to Labour values.
That’s entirely what Badenoch wants to be: she made one of her main leadership pitches the complaint that her party had talked right and governed left, and a promise to rectify that. But it is also a risk. Labour is still most energised by talking about the problems with the Tories, rather than articulating its own vision.
There is a particular irony in Starmer and co-pushing Badenoch to reveal more of her policies. They were pretty vague about their own intentions during the general election this year, and continue to be reticent about what “change” really means. The difference, of course, is that Badenoch is in the luxury of opposition, whereas Labour is in government – just in case Starmer has forgotten.
The Conservatives could quite feasibly have a wonderful few years arguing about first principles, writing pamphlets and refusing to clarify anything at all on how they will reform or fund public services. Labour cannot, but seems to be talking still as though it is in a scrutiny rather than executive role. That is why Starmer’s verbal slips with Sunak were so telling.
The Labour leader often comes to the Commons armed with questions for his opponents, rather than answers about his own plans. He has become a master of dodging the demands from whoever is the Leader of the Opposition, instead reminding the Chamber of what the Conservatives did when in office, or suggesting that they might become more extreme during their time in opposition. The fact is though that no-one really cares what the Tories do (not even their members, it seems, given the lower turnout in their leadership election).
Starmer is the Prime Minister and yet we still don’t know how he plans to get to where he wants with public services. He can rightly be pleased with his attack operation, but he cannot confuse that with the business of getting things done. By all means characterise the Conservatives as mad and bad.
But Labour also needs to emphasise its own activity in government, because in politics, the one thing that is worse than being seen as mad and bad is being dismissed as irrelevant. He shouldn’t pay the Tories too much attention. After all, they’re not in government.
Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator magazine.
