The Starmer attack line: “He’s scared of his party. I’ve changed my party.”
The Sunak defense: “[Hester] apologized, his remorse should be accepted.” Let’s see if that line holds any longer than the last one.
Particularly since … While Hester apologized, he did not accept that his comments about Abbott — which included the line “you just want to hate all black women because she’s there” — were racist or sexist. He characterized the comments as “rude” only.
On to the other stuff: Starmer moved on to the thing he really wants to focus on: trying to make Sunak look like lettuce-hating ex-PM Liz Truss. Taking aim at the government’s long-term ambition to scrap National Insurance, he suggested the “unfunded tax cut” is Sunak’s equivalent of Truss’ disastrous mini-budget. Which is a bit of a stretch, but still.
The inevitable dad joke: “All we need now is an especially hardy lettuce and it could be 2022,” Starmer spluttered out. Bah-dum-tish.
Taking a stray hit: Helpful question of the day award goes to veteran Tory backbencher Edward Leigh. He asked Sunak if he reckons there’s only one political party which has the will to block illegal migration — a shot at both Labour and the right-wing Reform UK, which welcomed Tory defector Lee Anderson into its ranks this week.
