Rachel Reeves’ big pitch for economic growth today was always going to overshadow Kemi Badenoch and Keir Starmer’s weekly tussle at PMQs.
The Conservative leader’s supporters continue to laud her ability to “cut through” and catapult herself into the headlines. (Not inherently a positive trait). But there could be no competing with the chancellor’s confirmation today, after weeks of feverish speculation, that the government supports plans for a third Heathrow Airport runway.
That said, Badenoch has frequently taken the government to task on the economy as part of her weekly inquisitions — and today was another chance for the Conservative leader to hone her argument.
In this sense, Badenoch’s case is straightforward enough: she maintains that ministers are choking, not kick-starting growth. Even more remarkable then, that Badenoch’s performance today was as incoherent, tetchy and misfiring as any of her prior maladroit showings.
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Taking to the despatch box, Badenoch began by accusing the prime minister of “destroying” growth. She referenced the “growth test” Starmer set himself on Tuesday: “If a policy is good for growth, the answer is yes. If it’s not, the answer is no”.
The Conservative leader continued: “Let’s look at the employment bill. The government’s own figures say it will cost business £5bn a year. It clearly fails the prime minister’s growth test. Will he drop it?
Starmer’s curt but effective comeback was typical of a more punchier performance this afternoon: “I think the proposition they left a golden inheritance was tested on 4 July [the general election].”
He added: “There’s more to do with reforming planning and regulation, building the new homes that we need, supporting a third runway at Heathrow. And as she admitted to the CBI in November, ‘there’s no point me just complaining about Labour’, she said. ‘It’s obvious that we Conservatives lost the confidence of business.’
“We’re not taking lectures from them.”
With this predictable response, Badenoch’s second question wrote itself — or so you would think. The prime minister had referenced business consternation about the Conservative Party’s record in government; Badenoch could hit back with more recent denouncements of Labour’s economic programme. But what followed was nothing short of bizarre.
Swerving away from her line of inquiry, Badenoch accused the prime minister of having “misled” the House of Commons last week — a significant transgression of parliamentary rules. She referred back to their exchange on schools and suggested the PM “was not on top of his own education bill.”
To accuse a prime minister of knowingly providing false information to parliament is as serious a charge as an opposition politician can level. Until the privileges committee reported in 2023, Keir Starmer never once accused his bête noire Boris Johnson of misleading the House over Partygate from the commons despatch box. But Badenoch chose to do so today, three months into her tenure as Tory leader, over the prime minister’s stance on an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
The speaker, as commons rules oblige, was fast to his feet. “We can’t accuse the prime minister of misleading the House”, Sir Lindsay Hoyle insisted. “We can’t do it! I’m sure that there’s words you would prefer to use.”
Badenoch, deprived of all momentum, was forced to reconfigure her question. “Last week, he claimed to have laid down an amendment that he had not made. He doesn’t know what is going on in here or out there”, she told MPs.
Having thoroughly explored this rhetorical and political cul-de-sac — angering the speaker in the process, Badenoch returned to Labour’s proposed changes to employment rights. “This isn’t an Employment Bill, it is an unemployment bill”, she blasted.
Starmer rejected the criticism: “We believe in giving people proper dignity and protection at work, that is why we are proud of our record supporting workers.”
The Conservative leader has consistently criticised the prime minister as being a “lawyer, not a leader” — having repeated the attack line (first deployed by Boris Johnson) across successive sessions. When Badenoch mocked the employment bill as “an adventure playground for lawyers” therefore, Starmer had a comeback ready.
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He told the House: “I understand she likes straight talking. She is talking absolute nonsense. She knows and anybody who understands anything about the bill or any employment law will know you can’t start in the morning and got to a tribunal in the afternoon.
“We know she is not a lawyer, she is clearly not a leader. If she keeps on like this she is going to be the next lettuce.”
It was a reference to the infamous Daily Star live stream, which pit a shrivelling shop-bought lettuce against then-prime minister Liz Truss in a battle to the death. As is now Westminster folklore, the lettuce triumphed.
Indeed it wasn’t even close. Six days after the Daily Star began its livestream on 14 October, Truss announced her resignation on the steps of Downing Street. It is little surprise then that Badenoch reportedly told her shadow cabinet earlier this month that she wants “Liz Truss to shut up for a while”. It came after Truss penned a “cease and desist” letter to the prime minister demanding he stop saying she crashed the economy. In PMQs last week, Starmer brandished the letter — and unapologetically repeated the accusation.
Starmer, of course, is far less keen for the name ‘Liz Truss’ and the memory of the vegetable that vanquished her to fade into obscurity. The former prime minister’s political brand remains her successor-but-one’s favourite punching bag.
Lettuce-themed attacks aside, Starmer also punished Badenoch this week for her recent comments about pensions. Badenoch’s triple lock controversy, which she triggered with an off-kilter comment on LBC, epitomises her pitfalls as a political operator. The prime minister showed real political purpose in exploiting that this afternoon.
In response to a planted question from Labour backbencher Damien Egan, Starmer said: “Let me absolutely clear Mr Speaker, there will be no means testing of the state pension under this Labour government. … [The Conservative Party] would cut pensions. We’re increasing them”.
During the frontbench exchange, Starmer added: “The only policy she’s got is to shrink pensions.”
We are still some time away from the specialists at the Daily Star brandishing a leaf vegetable at Badenoch’s expense. But her repeat poor performances at the despatch box are welcome solace for an otherwise pressured prime minister.
Lunchtime briefing
Belief that Britain was right to leave the EU falls to new low of 30%, poll finds
Lunchtime soundbite
‘He knows in relation to the reset with the EU… that we have clear red lines when it comes to the single market and the customs union, so he knows where we stand on that.’
— Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey urges the prime minister to take the UK into a Continent-wide customs deal with the EU. Keir Starmer responds as above.
Now try this…
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PoliticsHome reports.
‘Heathrow third runway: a saga of promises, protest and U-turns’
The Guardian reports.
‘Britain’s Rachel Reeves needs a growth miracle’
All the big hurdles to an economic turnaround as the UK chancellor makes her pro-growth pitch, writes Politico’s Dan Bloom.
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