PMQs review: Is Kemi Badenoch getting her strategy from the Two Ronnies?
This one, however, is not Gyles – novelty knitwear wearer, former Tory MP and whip, now seen on The One Show interviewing the sort of people who've been using the same iron for 65 years. The new Brandreth is his daughter, the splendidly-named Aphra, who was elected Conservative MP for Chester South and Eddisbury last year. She is a former London councillor and, unlike Dad, who voted to Remain, a woman determined to keep alive the Brexit wars.
It is with some regret that we must inform you there is now another Brandreth popping up on BBC TV, talking rubbish in exchange for attention and perhaps the occasional chuckle.
'With the so-called EU-UK reset summit less than two weeks away,' she asked Keir Starmer in PMQs today, emphasising the 'so-called' although that's what it is, 'will the prime minister reassure the House that he will not hand over any British sovereign powers, particularly the hard-won controls over our UK fishing waters, in backroom deals with Brussels?'
Control over fishing waters is not a touchstone issue in Chester South and Eddisbury – although the River Dee is home to wild brown trout and grayling, it is rarely troubled by French trawlers – so it is fair to assume that this was an early salvo in the coming battle over Sir Keir's reset. Any compromise will be seen as a betrayal.
'We will act only, as we always do, in the national interest,' said the PM. 'We have secured a very good deal with India, we are talking to the US and we are going for a reset with the EU to boost our economy.' He might have added 'one of these has just potentially started the third world war and the other is determined to decimate our film industry, so let's hope the third works out', but didn't.
We start with Brandreth rather than Kemi Badenoch as the action at the top of the bill failed to spark. Last week, the Tory leader might have been expected to lead on Tony Blair's rather ill-timed pre-local election criticism of Labour's net zero policy, but didn't. Turned out the arch-strategist Badenoch had been keeping it in her back pocket for a whole week later when the local elections were over and everybody had forgotten Blair had said anything, let alone what it was. Clever Kemi!
Sometimes it seems her strategy guide is not The Art of War but that Two Ronnies sketch in which a Mastermind contestant answers the previous question.
'This approach to net zero is 'irrational'; it is 'doomed to fail',' said Badenoch. 'Those aren't my words; they are Tony Blair's.' ('Aaaaaaaaaah!' chorused Tory MPs at Badenoch's seven-days-late zinger). 'If the prime minister wants to throw words about, he should speak to him. The truth is that the prime minister is on another planet!'.
Starmer, who frequently gives the impression in PMQs that he wishes he were on another planet, preferred to quote the many times that Badenoch, when in government, had spoken in favour of renewable energy ('It's long-term investment in nuclear and renewables that will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and keep down consumer costs'). Kemi looked annoyed. Didn't he know she wasn't running for leader of the Conservatives then?
And that was largely that. Elsewhere, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey went all Pastor Niemöller in his latest salvo at President Trump, this time at the leader of the free world's back-of-a-fag-packet scheme to impose tariffs on foreign films.
'First, he came for our steelworkers and our car makers with his outrageous tariffs,' he said. 'Now, Donald Trump is coming for our world-leading British film industry. Will the prime minister work with our allies in Europe and the Commonwealth and make it clear to President Trump that if he picks a fight with James Bond, Bridget Jones and Paddington Bear, he will lose?'.
An unamused Starmer trotted out his usual line about the false equivalence of choosing between the EU and US. Alongside him, Angela Rayner and Jonathan Reynolds laughed. Opposite, Badenoch appeared to ponder whether this Paddington chap (Peruvian immigrant, asylum status unknown) was 'one of us'.
Finally, Starmer's weirdest answer came to the penultimate question, from Labour's Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar). Crichton was worried about reports that the Press Association, which covers parliamentary proceedings, 'may cut back its dawn-to-dusk coverage through redundancies'. There is nothing MPs like less than the thought that their words may not be assiduously covered by the world's media.
'Across the world, journalists risk their lives, and lose their lives, doing what they do best: independently pursuing the truth,' said the prime minister. 'On many occasions I have been at award ceremonies, usually on a yearly basis, where the names of those journalists who have lost either their lives or their freedom is read out, and it is always a humbling reminder of the really important work that they do.'
Which, those remaining hacks in the gallery of the House may have noted, was an answer to a completely different question. Many parliamentary journalists, of course, have risked, and indeed lost, their lives down the years – but the culprits were usually Rothmans and Watneys Red Barrel.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
6 minutes ago
- Spectator
Is Dutch tolerance dying?
Campaigners across southern Europe are protesting against 'touristification'. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, wealthy expats are in the firing line. Businesses in Amsterdam could be asked to foot the bill for local housing if they employ highly-skilled internationals. Alongside paranoia about asylum seekers, there is a rising feeling that expats and even holidaymakers are unwelcome in parts of the continent. The Netherlands was once an outward-looking, tolerant, trader nation. Is that still the case? It's not much fun to live in a place – or even visit somewhere – that resents your presence, especially if you have bothered to learn the local language and swallowed the high tax rates that fund northern Europe's generous social benefits. But this 'me-first' sentiment in Europe is great news for London and anywhere else in the market for scarce global talent. Post-Brexit 'trading volumes shifting to Amsterdam appear to be here to stay,' Dutch financial paper Het Financieele Dagblad jubilantly announced earlier this year. The paper claimed that 'Amsterdam is now bigger than London'. In the aftermath of Britain's departure from the EU, there certainly appeared to be some evidence that London's dominance as a global financial centre might be at risk. But – unlike the years after the 2016 EU referendum, in which the European Medicines Agency relocated to Amsterdam, and the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency loudly boasted about winning businesses, jobs and investments – there has been a change of tone. The Netherlands was once an outward-looking, tolerant, trader nation that advertised for foreign students and was proud of its English-language proficiency. Is that still the case? Last week, Amsterdam council voted to pass a motion to ask international businesses based in the Dutch capital to contribute to solving a general housing shortage and pay for programmes to get their 'lonely' foreign workers to integrate. The policy, 'Make Amsterdam your home', sounded friendly enough, but the message behind it was anything but. 'In short, internationalisation is part of our city but it also brings challenges, such as driving up house prices, the emergence of a parallel world and the transformation of neighbourhoods, for example because more and more English is spoken,' it declared. Foreign companies, said the accompanying Labour press release, should be expected to give something back. As the Netherlands remembers 80 years of liberation from the Nazis – thanks to Allied troops, speaking that awful language of English – foreigners are being blamed for driving up house prices and sabotaging social cohesion. The facts are less important than nationalist gut feeling: the Dutch government offers 110,000 highly-skilled migrants (including footballers) a temporary tax break to compensate for its high income taxes. But despite the expats, who don't even have a vote, benefitting our country, they are far from popular. It doesn't seem to matter that a government analysis found the tax break raises €128.5million (£110 million) a year, has a 'very modest impact' on house prices and 97 per cent of the highly-skilled professionals work full time, compared with 52 per cent of the Dutch. Nor that Statistics Netherlands research suggests that Germans and Brits lead the least segregated lives and wealthy locals the most. The Dutch government recently collapsed in a row over asylum created by far-right veteran Geert Wilders. Universities are scrapping English-language courses and capping international student numbers. Now, Amsterdam councillors are pointing the finger at internationals for the consequences of the Netherlands' part-time lifestyle, lack of house-building and preference for single-person households. Meanwhile, the country continues to ignore calls from the European Commission, Dutch central bank and its own economists to reduce home owner tax breaks that inflate its housing market. It's easy – if absurd – to vilify other people and treat hard-working foreigners who do the jobs you can't or won't do as 'exploiting' your system. But the result is obvious: when places like the Netherlands become hostile to international business and talent, it will go elsewhere. The failure of Dutch tolerance is a marvellous opportunity, in other words, for a place like London – where you can be judged by what you can do instead of by your name; where a finance minister doesn't have to admit the tax office has a problem with 'institutional racism'; and a government doesn't fall after falsely accusing some 40,000 families of childcare benefits fraud. Non-doms might not be welcome in the UK – and Wise, the British fintech, might be leaving for New York – but filthy-rich talent is not a problem in London. Some Dutch experts, at least, recognise that their golden age is tarnishing. To the concern of the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW), the country dropped from 4th in 2021 to 10th this year in the IMD's world competitiveness ranking. The Netherlands might be ahead of the UK (29th) with the help of its international trade, but tax policy is rated a dismal 67th – well under Britain. The general-director of the VNO-NCW Focco Vijselaar tells The Spectator that there is cause for concern. 'For quite some time, we have been pointing out the concrete rot in our business climate,' he said. 'And you see the cracks in these kinds of lists. If you look at international investment, we are at 41st place, an unprecedentedly low spot. We are struggling with major bottlenecks in the Netherlands: a housing market that is locked down, nitrogen pollution problems and high energy prices.' Flip-flopping on highly-skilled migrant tax breaks does not help, he added: 'We need the expats.' Liberal democrats in Amsterdam are also worried about scapegoating the international community. 'That social cohesion is under pressure is not solely due to the expats,' said Democrats 66 economics spokesman Erik Schmit last week. 'Housing prices are rising: it is not proven that this is solely due to the international community…As a government, we have other priorities.' But after constant changes to the 30 per cent highly skilled migrant tax-free allowance and the removal of its non-dom ruling, the Netherlands is increasingly out of favour. New foreign student numbers have plunged, threatening various courses. Data from jobs site Indeed shows a drop of 48 per cent in applications from India and 40 per cent from the UK this year. Emigration appears to have peaked and highly-skilled migrant numbers are tumbling. Britain might have creaking infrastructure and complex regulation, but it is remarkably open and far less corrupt than many of its neighbours. If the Dutch want to drive out innovators, talent and factories with high energy prices, punitive taxes and cultural suspicion – and if southern Europe is busy fighting with tourists – other cities have a chance. Now is the time to declare Britain open for business.
The Herald Scotland
14 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Are you ‘upset'? The dangers of flags in Scottish schools
Ms McDonald also said in the letter that she'd spoken to her pupils and explained the symbolism and association of flags and symbols to different groups of people, and how using the pictures was contrary to the school values of respect and kindness. 'I hope this helps everyone understand where mistakes have been made,' she said, 'and we can move on enjoying the rest of the end-of-term celebrations.' The language, the tone, the phrasing – 'inclusion', 'acceptance', 'offensive', 'upset', 'I hope this helps' – is a good example of the way some people in the public sector have learned to talk, indeed feel they must talk: plaintive, patronising, passive aggressive. I also dread to think what Ms McDonald said to the pupils when she 'explained the symbolism and association of flags'; if her letter's anything to go by, she's the last person who should be explaining it. But as I say, the headteacher has now said sorry through her council, East Renfrewshire. A council statement said she'd never meant to suggest the union flag was sectarian and 'apologised for any offence and upset that has been caused' (more upset and offence you'll notice). The council issued its statement after the local MSP, Tory Jackson Carlaw, said he was angry about the head's letter and that equating the Union flag with sectarianism was deeply offensive (I think we may need to ban the o-word). We also need to put all the apparent offence and upset in perspective. It would seem that someone saw the pictures of the event, noticed the Union flags, and contacted the school to say they were upset. The headteacher then reacted in the way she did, writing her letter, which upset other people, meaning the headteacher then had to apologise to them as well and suddenly we're in a spiral of offence and apology. The problem is that, in a hyper-sensitive culture, we assume someone being 'upset' requires some kind of reaction: a there-there, a soothing letter or placating policy announcement. Consult your granny: it does not. Read more These are the latest plans at the Glasgow School of Art. Really? No more Edinburgh Book Festival for me – where did it all go wrong? A Scottish legend says cancel culture is over. Yeah right The fact that someone was upset by the pictures of the event at Arthurlie Primary is also an indication of how flags work. Stick a flag up a pole – any flag, any pole – and you'll immediately please some people and upset others. The Union flag makes a particular type of Scottish nationalist puce with fury – God forbid any Scottish supermarket that puts it on British sausages – and increasingly the same applies to the saltire and a particular type of Unionist. The situation also got a lot worse after 2014, but we are where we are. What it means a decade on, in 2025, is that putting up a Union flag, or a saltire for that matter, in a school, or anywhere, is not a neutral act. Maybe there was a time, before the Scottish referendum, when flags went up without much comment; I also used to think, with some satisfaction, that a lot of Scots find naked patriotism and flags a wee bit embarrassing. But the referendum changed things, flags led to more flags (flagflation) and now there's anger because the flag you see isn't the 'right' one. Hence someone looking at a picture of an event at Arthurlie Primary and getting upset. There-there. The position the school takes now is that it was not their intention to imply the Union flag is sectarian but beyond that, it's unclear what their policy is. The council statement says the school should be 'focused on a diverse British society' and 'foster an ethos of respect for diverse perspectives and national identity'. So does that mean it's OK to put up Union flags to reflect one of the diverse national identities? Or does it mean it's not OK to put up Union flags because it only reflects one of the diverse national identities? They may have withdrawn the 'sectarian' accusation but where they actually stand on flags is uncertain. Jackson Carlaw (Image: PA) Perhaps if Ms McDonald had chosen her words more carefully, we wouldn't be in this position. The use of 'sectarian' was certainly ill-advised given its connection to the Troubles and traditional religious tensions which still bubble in parts of Scotland. She also failed to take into account that many Scots, including some of the parents of kids at her school, will feel positively about the Union flag and so ended up committing that most heinous of modern crimes: offending someone, while trying to avoid offending someone. She also appeared to be handing a kind of veto to people who get upset by the Union flag but get over-excited by saltires. You know the type. And why is it always me who ends up sitting next to them at parties? Anyway, expressed in a different way that didn't appear to single out the Union flag, perhaps the headteacher could have explained that there are dangers in all flags in schools. There will be some who argue that the Union flag is different and that it's the national flag of the UK and therefore represents everyone, but I'm afraid – given everything we've been through in the last ten years – that would be naïve at best or evasive at worst. Best, perhaps, for schools to just try to be neutral and, crucially, consistent: no Union flags, no saltires, no flags at all, not mine, not yours. The risk you run otherwise is that you start to introduce the kind of stuff that comes with flags. You may remember a few years ago Michael Gove suggesting 'British values' should be taught in English classrooms, no doubt draped with union flags. Some Scottish nationalists also talk about 'Scottish values' and maybe one day they'd like to teach them in schools plastered with saltires. But in this country, we're rather sceptical about all of that or used to be – it's something the Americans do, not us. And maybe that's something we should try to keep hold of. And maybe the best place to do it is in a classroom free of flags.
South Wales Argus
16 minutes ago
- South Wales Argus
Abergavenny library mosque proposal decision date named
A decision to grant a 30-year lease on the former Abergavenny library was approved in May before being put on hold pending review by a council scrutiny committee, which met last week, and said the decision had to go back to the cabinet within 10 working days. Just days before the scrutiny committee took place the words 'No Masjid' and crosses were spray painted on to the grade II listed building with police investigating the criminal damage as a hate crime. Masjid is Arabic for place of worship or mosque. Monmouthshire council's Labour-led cabinet will now consider the arguments made at the place scrutiny committee when it meets for its regular meeting on Wednesday, June 25 and must decide whether to stand by its original decision or reconsider it. The scrutiny committee heard from Abergavenny mayor Philip Bowyer and town council colleague Gareth Wild, a Baptist minister, who both spoke in favour of the cabinet's decision to grant the lease to the Monmouthshire Muslim Community Association. READ MORE: Banner of support draped over Abergavenny mosque graffiti Four public speakers, including Sarah Chicken the warden of the alms houses next door to the former library, a resident, and Andrew Powell landlord of the nearby Groefield pub objected to the decision, citing reasons such as parking and potential for noise as to why a mosque and community centre would be unsuitable. Cabinet member Ben Callard, who lives near the proposed mosque and represents the area on the town council though he is the county councillor for Llanfoist and Govilon, explained no planning permission is required. Community centres and places of worship fall under the same planning use as a library. But he said the community association had promised to hold a public consultation on its plans, but that was criticised by councillors who called the decision in for review, as it was 'consultation after the decision'. The review was instigated by Conservative councillors Rachel Buckler and Louise Brown, who represent Devauden and Shirenewton, and Llanelly Hill independent Simon Howarth who questioned how the decision was made. They faced criticism as Abergavenny councillors and the town council backed the original decision. The former Abergavenny Library. The three questioned the council's process and complained there had been no scrutiny of the decision. Cllr Callard said the community association's bid was the highest scoring tender, and the £6,000 a year rent similar to one of the other bids, and rejected the idea it would be practical for the council to operate as a landlord if every lease had to go through a full scrutiny process. Cllr Callard also said if councillors disagreed with it offering the building for new uses, as it was no longer used as a pupil referral unit with the library having transferred to the town hall in 2015, the decision made last November to declare it 'surplus to requirements' should have been called in for review. The cabinet will consider the scrutiny committee's suggestions a re-tender should be run with specifications including an independent valuation, a survey of the building, consideration of the building's history and importance, a public consultation and the possibility of selling the building. It meets at County Hall in Usk at 4.30pm.
