Prime minister’s questions: a shouty, jeery, very occasionally useful advert for British politics. Here’s what you need to know from this week’s session in POLITICO’s weekly run-through.
Housekeeping note: With Rishi Sunak off to Japan for the G7, it was the turn of the stand-ins at PMQs — with Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner and new Deputy PM Oliver Dowden ready to trade blows.
Welcome to the party, pal: Rayner welcomed Dowden by noting Rishi Sunak “finally has a working-class friend” in the state-schooled new DPM. Nodding at increased Westminster chat about potential post-election coalitions, Dowden said in reply that he was surprised not to see Starmer’s choice for next deputy PM at the despatch box — the Lib Dem leader Ed Davey. Bantz! It didn’t get much better from there. But keep reading, please.
What they sparred about: There was some brief back-and-forth about government efforts to tackle NHS waiting lists, which are at record levels. But that genuinely important issue was largely dwarfed — with Rayner choosing to focus on the dodgiest hits of the ongoing right-wing National Conservatism conference, and Dowden taking the opportunity to remind MPs that former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn still exists.
Gaffe alert: Taking aim at the at-times troubled relationship between Rayner and Starmer, Dowden said they are the “Phil and Holly of British politics” — a reference to the apparently now-feuding TV hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby who are actually always listed as Holly and Phil, not the other way round.
Gaffe alert II: Hitting back at criticism from Scottish National Party number two Mhairi Black, Dowden said the SNP had failed to deliver despite spending 13 years in office up in Scotland. Just one problem: the SNP have been in power for 16 years. He might have meant his own party.
Matt’s got a new hobby alert: Former politician turned camel-penis-snaffling reality star Matt Hancock popped up to urge the PM to focus on “issues of the future” like artificial intelligence.
Helpful intervention of the week: Another PMQs, another rant about Liberal Democrat-run councils from Tory MPs given an opportunity to question the most senior members of their own government. “It’s an absolute disgrace that the Liberal Democrat-run council shut the public loos,” MP Angela Richardson said — though to be fair she was pointing to the real problem of a lack of safe spaces for young women at night.
Totally non-scientific scores on the doors: Dowden’s delivery of a classic dreadful PMQs joke — e.g, “while we want to stop the boats, Labour want to rig the votes!” — is already better than Sunak’s. But as Sky’s political correspondent Sam Coates said in the aftermath, “give me Phil and Holly any day of the week — my God that was painful.”
Dowden 4/10 … Rayner 4/10 … The happiness levels of anyone who did literally anything else aside from watching this: 100/10.
