PMQs sketch: Keir Starmer, future fruit picker for Britain
Keir Starmer is not a man known for his quick wit. Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions were a keen reminder of this as the leader of the opposition, so eager to get out his gags about Suella Braverman,was unable to effectively counter the Prime Minister.
It’s a truism in politics to say that an open goal is often the hardest one, and the combination of Suella Braverman’s attempt to evade points on her licence for speeding by attending a “private” speed awareness course and the sky-high immigration numbers forecast to come out tomorrow, was a goal post larger than Rishi Sunak’s 40-foot swimming pool.
But Starmer’s heart wasn’t really in it when he opened with a dig at the Home Secretary’s need for a refresher on “points based systems”, and continued with jokes about her “speeding through the void”.
Sunak, on the other hand, had a decent attack line after the International Monetary Fund revised its forecasts for the UK economy.
“I am very surprised,” said Sunak, a man who is often surprised whenever he stops reading a spreadsheet, “I’ve stood here week after week, when he’s been so keen to quote the IMF, he seemed to have missed their press conference yesterday, where he actually raised our growth forecasts to the highest they’ve ever done”.
Starmer, rattled, raged: “Is he seriously suggesting that breaking the economy, breaking public services, losing control of immigration is part of some carefully crafted plan?”
Quickly, he pivoted.
“(There is) no plan for skills growth, or wages, no, (Suella Braverman’s) big idea for British workers is to become fruit pickers, just in case that they ‘forget how to do things’, does the prime minister support this let them pick fruit ambition?”
“Or,” he continued, already smiling to himself, “does he wish he had the strength to give her a career change of her own?”
When Sunak went back to his new best friends, the IMF, Starmer threw out another pre-rehearsed Suella quip.
“The Home Sec may need a speed awareness course, he needs a reality check.”
And, just when Rishi thought he couldn’t have a better go of it, Stephen Flynn, his head even shining in the dimly lit Commons chamber, presented himself as evidence of the prime minister’s boast that Britain has some of the “best young readers” in the world, by successfully reading out, in full, the prices of groceries from his local Sainsbury’s.