‘He has got no choice but to be here for Prime Minister’s Questions! That’s why he’s here. If he could skip this, he would!’ That accusation from Kemi Badenoch would apply to any week, but it was striking that at this first session of the New Year, Keir Starmer looked like he wanted to skip a session dominated by his comfort zone of international diplomacy. The Prime Minister did not have a good session, and had Badenoch continued to be strong throughout her six questions, then his delicately worded statements about Donald Trump might have started to disintegrate as well.

Nigel Farage chose to listen to PMQs on the radio

Badenoch started by complaining that given the ‘last few days have seen significant international events’, it was ‘frankly astonishing that the Prime Minister is not making a full statement to Parliament........

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