Keir Starmer came to PMQs wearing that look of post-resignation relief that we’ve grown all too used to seeing on a prime minister’s face over the past decade. He had to deal with a particularly brutal Kemi Badenoch today, though the full force of the Leader of the Opposition’s attacks was largely directed at Starmer’s cabinet, rather than him.

Reeves appeared close to tears as Starmer replied with a full tribute to her

Reeves appeared close to tears as Starmer replied with a full tribute to her

Badenoch first congratulated the Prime Minister on his party’s by-election win, but then added jokingly that she suspected he would be less happy with his new MP than she was with hers. She also reminded the Chamber that ‘two weeks ago, the Prime Minister told the House that the government was funding defence, and everything was under control’ but that ‘the very next day, the defence secretary resigned, saying the Prime Minister was unable and the Treasury unwilling to fund the defence of our country – what changed?’

Starmer replied that he was ‘very pleased with our new member of parliament’, to laughter from around the House. He then joked that on the progress the Tories had made in Makerfield, it would take them 500 years to get back into power. He argued that Labour had in fact ‘delivered the biggest sustained boost to defence spending since the 1980s’, and would ‘finalise the plan with the Defence Secretary and have it published before the Nato summit’.

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Labour ministers lose it with Badenoch after PMQs

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