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10 hours ago
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Prime minister’s question time existed, on this ordinary-looking spring day, to answer one monumental question that nobody in the chamber had even asked: are we, as the unsettlingly thuggish US vice-president, JD Vance, has said, “some random country that has not fought a war in 30 or 40 years”?
Keir Starmer’s opening statement, in which he soberly read out the names and ages of men “who fought for their country, for our country”, crescendoing: “Across the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 642 individuals died fighting for Britain alongside our allies,” was arguably his direct and quite lawyerly response. We may be random, chum, but we’ve definitely fought in a bunch of wars, which – wait, let me check my notes – you started.
Kemi Badenoch’s approach needs a bit of background. She’d been asked about our randomness by a reporter the day before, when she was on the farmer’s march, with Victoria Atkins standing behind her puzzlingly dressed in a union flag jacket, like Geri Halliwell trying to get into a golf club. Put a pin in that, because it will come up again later. “Well, I know JD Vance quite well,” Badenoch said. “I’ve looked at the comments, I don’t think he actually said that. A lot of people are getting carried away, they’re saying loads of things.”
The unfortunate thing is, he did say that; if you wanted to deny it, your best possible bet would be “he didn’t mean us, he meant France”, which wouldn’t be very comradely. The opposition leader’s course, to deny a thing we saw and heard, then cover it in the meaningless mouth-noises of “a lot of people” saying “loads of things”, looks like dimwittery but is actually systematically corroding observable reality.
But never mind, in the Commons she took a new tack: a series of statements with which no reasonable person could disagree. She joined the prime minister in gratitude for our troops, and asked him to join her in hoping we wouldn’t end up in a war against Russia. “That’s the last thing anybody wants to see,” Starmer agreed, and I don’t want to say it’s the weirdest exchange that’s ever happened in PMQs, but it’s certainly a new way to use time, agreeing that nobody wants that thing nobody wants.
“The surest risk is if Putin feels that he can breach a deal,” Starmer continued, as if he was just one big thought away from the killer clause, that he could insert into a deal and make it watertight, and this satisfied Badenoch, who went on to be satisfied by a bunch of other optimistic, bordering on magical, assertions.
Could the prime minister “update the house on the steps he is taking to persuade America it’s in their national interest to provide a security guarantee”? Sure he can: Trump already made it “absolutely clear”, in Washington, “that he would have our backs”, and Starmer has spoken to him three times since on the phone. We’re into teenagers-who’ve-been-on-a-date territory. When he said he’d call but immediately before that said he was going to be very busy for the next three years, that means he’ll call, right? What if I call him, three times, and he picks up? This is great news, right?
Badenoch pushed Starmer a little on his certainties, raising the tiny matter of the US suspending intelligence-sharing with Ukraine, which could conceivably be a bad sign, and was again placated by the bafflingly bland response: “We need to ensure that the US, the UK, Europe and Ukraine are working together.”
It’s hard to see how these questions could have been handled differently. Nobody, not even Nigel Farage, would ever want to side with the US and agree that we’re random. Likewise, nobody – OK, apart from Ed Davey – wants to pick a fight with America, at this delicate time, when their gloves are off but their fists are still considered so vital that other world leaders are reduced to watching and hoping that they’ll sometimes punch in the right direction.
There really couldn’t be a worse time for the government and the opposition to be openly disagreeing, particularly given that neither would find it tactically useful to say what they think in the first place. The only question is, did they agree all that in advance? Or is there some bat signal they give off, to park the rancour, like divorcees at a parents’ evening?
This is where Victoria Atkins came in, in a supporting role: do something, anything, to make it clear we’re all still at each other’s throats, do it loud, and do it in a lively outfit – Michael Jackson-style marching-band attire – so that no one can miss it. She overshot, shouted “lie” and then had to apologise. But she played her part in creating the impression that it was all still fighty, shouty business as usual, and the nation should thank her; otherwise we’d really start to panic.
