Don't mention the local elections: Keir and Kemi sign non-aggression pact at PMQs

The Guardian

07-05-2025

Y ou'd have thought it might have been a moment for contrition. Or failing that, a veneer of humility. At the very least a nano-second's pause for self reflection. An admission from Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch that voters had turned their backs on both of them at last week's local elections. A potential kiss of death for this country's traditional two-party system.
Not a bit of it. Come prime minister's questions and neither Keir nor Kemi was in the mood to give an inch. Everything was exactly as it should be. The locals – what locals? – had never happened. No one does amnesia better than politicians with their backs to the wall. It was almost as though they had signed a non-aggression pact. Just don't mention the war. Snafu. Situation Normal All Fucked Up.
Starmer at least had the grace – the clarity, even – to seem somewhat flustered. This wasn't him at the top of his game. He seemed edgy, stumbling over his words from time to time. As though he too was aware that there was something vaguely surreal about the whole performance. That there was a truth-shaped hole in his soul. Even the Labour backbenchers were unusually silent. They are increasingly desperate to find a reason to believe.
What left is there to say bout Kemi? KemiKaze is going to KemiKaze. Perhaps she's secretly thrilled to be leading her party towards the threat of extinction. Going head to head with the manspreading Chris Philp to be the last Tory to be found in captivity. No greater reward. Or maybe Kemi just has no shame. Finds it easy to block out her nose-diving approval ratings. Just let go of inconvenient facts and substitute her own reality. One where what the leader of the opposition says counts for something.
Keir began by expressing dismay at the outbreak of hostilities between India and Pakistan, before seamlessly segueing in to praising his new trade deal with India. One that was conveniently signed moments before Modi fired missiles into Pakistan. I guess we don't have to look far to see which side the UK will be on. Still, you can't blame Starmer for being over-excited. This is the biggest trade deal the UK has done since leaving the EU. Even if it is one that will only add 0.1% to our GDP by 2040. But hey, a win is a win. You can't ignore those Brexit bonuses when they come.
I had vaguely imagined that Kemi would use her slot at PMQs to give Labour a hard time over the India deal. After all, she had spent most of the previous day rubbishing it. It would let in loads of immigrants, she had said. None of whom would be paying their taxes, she had said. Yet another example of Two-Tier Kier. She would never have done that when she was trade secretary. That was why the Tories had failed to reach a deal when they had been in office.
It just goes to show Kemi shouldn't believe everything she reads on X. Which is where she gets most of her information. For it turned out that a contra-tax arrangement was standard in almost every other trade deal Britain had done. Maybe she was just unhappy about brown people getting the benefit. Obviously it's fine when it's the French or the Germans.
Nor should Kemi necessarily trust her own memory. Far from blocking the deal due to tax arrangements when business secretary, as she had claimed, the Indians were keen to let the world know she had actually inserted those arrangements into the trade deal framework. And had still been unable to get it across the line.
Better still, she started drawing attention to the Indian claims by reposting them on social media. 'IT'S NOT TRUE,' she insisted. Except no one believed her. Sometimes it's a mystery what goes on in Kemi's head. Maybe nothing. As Sherlock Holmes observed, when you've eliminated all that is impossible, the improbable must be the truth. Perhaps she's secretly a sleeper agent for Reform.
For half an hour, though, Kemi's wranglers had managed to steer her away from highlighting damaging stories about herself. There was to be no mention of The India Deal and My Part in its Downfall. Keir was devastated. The deal was the best thing that had happened to him in weeks. Months. He was desperate to talk about it. No one could shut him up. Time and again he raised it. 'THIS IS MY TRADE DEAL WHICH IS MINE.' But no one was that bothered. Even the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, looked underwhelmed.
Instead KemiKaze just decided to waste everyone's time. Including her own. Her capacity for self-destruction is limitless. First she wondered whether Labour would be reinstating a universal Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners. Thereby forgetting that she had been all in favour of means testing when the Tories had been in government. And that she still hadn't got around to thinking of how she proposed to fill the deficit were the WFA to be reintroduced. It's come to something when Starmer's waffle can win the argument.
Halfway through, Badenoch got bored and started a new line of questioning. One that seemed to belong to last week's PMQs, after the Day Before Yesterday's man, Tony Blair, had failed to take his medication and had talked nonsense about net zero. Keir couldn't believe his luck because he had all his answers lined up from the previous week, which he hadn't been able to use as Kemi had forgotten to ask about it. Maybe this is the way it's going to roll from now on. Everyone in a seven-day timewarp. It's now odds on she'll raise the India deal next week.
Er … Kemi was a climate defeatist, said Starmer. Before digging out quotes from her when she had been in government in which she had said renewables were the energy of the future. Never change, Kemi.
It took Ed Davey to remind the chamber that the local elections had taken place the previous week. Keir and Kemi looked blank. Some mistake there. That had never happened. In the end, Davey gave up and resorted to his specialist subject: Donald Trump. What to do about Agent Orange's latest threat to impose a 100% tariff on foreign films. Or as The Donald put it: 'The greatest announcement in the history of announcements.' Time for the Paddington death stare.