Assuming the sky doesn’t fall in and Makerfield MP Andy Burnham does indeed become the next UK prime minister, Keir Starmer’s first prime minister’s questions (PMQs) since his resignation statement should serve as a warning for his incoming successor: prepare for a brutal weekly battle at the dispatch box.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party, was in full, thrusting, combative mode at this week’s PMQs set-piece, held each Wednesday at noon in the House of Commons.
After a slow and uncertain start after becoming party leader in November 2024, the Tory opposition politician has since established herself. Now she seems to be nearing the peak of her powers as a notoriously pugilistic parliamentarian.
Commons etiquette suggests it might be more usual for the opposition leader to show grace towards a departing prime minister. Not Badenoch. She tried to maul him and half his cabinet.
RM Block
Burnham should take note of Badenoch’s growing confidence in these exchanges. One of his first challenges as prime minister when parliament returns in September from its upcoming summer recess may be to show he has the verve to cope with her.
On Wednesday, instead of being graceful towards the departing Starmer, she opened with a taunt. On the same day that Burnham won Makerfield, Tory candidate Douglas Lumsden won a byelection in Aberdeen South.
“I’m much happier with my new MP than he [Starmer] is with his,” said Badenoch.
Then she began taking lumps out his cabinet.
She turned her fire first on Ed Miliband, a contender to be Burnham’s chancellor, who is also well known for having outmanoeuvred his own brother to become Labour leader in 2010.
Badenoch suggested Miliband had been treacherous to Starmer by plotting to get rid of him, so that Burnham could take his place. “It’s not the first time he’s betrayed someone close to him,” she said, to gasps across the chamber.
She then turned to education secretary Bridget Phillipson, whose story about having grown up in abject poverty in Sunderland is well known in British politics. Badenoch dismissed her as a “spiteful class warrior” who has been a “disaster” as education secretary.
Starmer defended her, referring passionately to her impoverished upbringing and painting her as an example of true social mobility: “I’m so proud that she is sitting there,” he said, pointing to the government front bench.
Instead of backing off, Badenoch doubled down: “If she knows so much about poor children, she shouldn’t have given them fewer teachers.” Cue more gasps.
Badenoch attacked Labour MPs for backing the prime minister against her PMQs attacks, while many of them also wanted him to quit: “If it’s all so fantastic, why is he resigning? They cheer so loudly for him now, while he has 400 knives stuck in his back. Shame on them.”
At this stage, Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle intervened to warn MPs (he meant Badenoch) to watch their tone and language, or they could have no complaint if the public used such aggressive language towards them.
[ Starmer ally says he will not run against Andy Burnham for Labour leadershipOpens in new window ]
Starmer returned to the dispatch box with a wry smile: “I shall miss these exchanges.”
The sheer unpredictability of PMQs continued.
Putney Labour MP Fleur Anderson, a former minister in the Northern Ireland office until Starmer sacked her, asked a question about heatwaves and climate change after revealing “a mature tree fell on my house today”.
In another bizarre Burnham-themed intervention, Tory MP Desmond Swayne asked Starmer is if he knew the 1907 children’s story about “Jim, who ran away from his nurse and was eaten by a lion”.
The prime minister seemed utterly bemused.
Afterwards, Starmer’s political spokesman confirmed to Westminster journalists that the outgoing prime minister would stay on as an MP and, he suggested, would not serve in his successor’s cabinet (there had been a sketchy, baseless rumour that he might be a contender to be foreign secretary).
Meanwhile, Burnham will need to be on his game for PMQs from day one. Badenoch will come for him too.
[ Mark Paul: Can Burnham be a better prime minster than Starmer?Opens in new window ]
