Starmer only cares about victims ‘to save his skin’, Badenoch blasts
Sir Keir Starmer faced a brutal grilling at Prime Minister’s Questions on Monday where Kemi Badenoch accused the Prime Minister of only caring about victims of sexual abuse “to save his skin”.
In a fiery exchange that was highly party-political but light on policy, the Labour leader said he had “accepted responsibility and apologised for the mistakes” made after a bruising week where his future looked to be in freefall.
But amidst the latest government scandal, Badenoch accused Starmer of continuously putting the “Downing Street boys club first” and “stuffing government with hypocrites and paedophile apologists”.
This comes after Labour removed the whip from newly-appointed peer and Starmer’s ex-director of communications Matthew Doyle after he was found to have campaigned for friend Sean Morton, who had been charged with possessing indecent images of children in 2016.
According to the Sunday Times, Morton was suspended from the Labour party after the charge but Doyle still believed his innocence and travelled to Scotland to campaign for him as an independent.
Morton would subsequently plead guilty and was convicted in 2018. The situation marks another embarrassment for Starmer in a bruising week with the Downing Street stating they did not know that Doyle had campaigned for Morton before was made a peer in December.
Starmer claimed in PMQs Doyle “did not give a full account of his actions”.
Badenoch: Mandelson scandal not an ‘isolated incident’
Badneoch said the scandal around former US ambassador Peter Mandelson could not be viewed as an “isolated incident” and Starmer had “established a pattern of behaviour” as he “cannot explain why he gave [Doyle] a peerage”.
Starmer attempted to flip the Tory leader’s question through citing recent defections from the Conservative Party to Reform.
“The Prime Minister is demonstrating stratospheric levels of delusion if he thinks the problem is on this side of the house,” Badenoch said.
The Tory leader added: “The Prime Minister is telling everyone he’s never lost a fight. It’s because he’s never stepped into the ring.”
The Prime Minister’s leadership has being speculated to be in freefall after a testing week triggered by top Downing Street resignations.
Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, triggered the week’s turmoil with his exit on Sunday as outrage grew over the appointment of Peter Mandelson to the US Ambassadorship. Mandelson was ousted last September but the latest drop of the Epstein files from the US Department of Justice this month has led to deeper questions about why he was appointed in the first place.
Tim Allan, Starmer’s director of communications, announced his departure on Monday to “allow a new Number 10 team to be built”.
This was shortly followed by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar calling for Starmer to resign after “too many mistakes”.
A rallying of Cabinet ministers – as well as former deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner – helped secure Starmer’s positions, though tensions have continued to mount due to reports of potential challenge from health secretary Wes Streeting.