Prime Minister’s Questions today saw a leader under repeated attack for a ‘screeching U-turn’ and their suitability to be Prime Minister called into question. Unusually, though, Keir Starmer was the one making that accusation, rather than being on the receiving end of it. He came to the chamber determined to tell Kemi Badenoch that she had made the wrong call on whether to join the US-Israeli action in Iran and that he, therefore, didn’t need to take lectures from her.

Badenoch was, as it happens, not really lecturing Starmer; she just wanted to know whether he was going to go ahead with the planned rise in fuel duty in September. The Prime Minister didn’t want to give her the answer, so the pair spent the entire session talking about their own preferred topic and ignoring one another. Badenoch opened with the question, ‘Why does the Prime Minister think now is the right time to increase the cost of petrol?’ Starmer replied:

The Prime Minister had an air of confidence about him

The Prime Minister had an air of confidence about him

We are not increasing the cost of petrol. We are absolutely clear in taking the measures that are necessary to deal with the impact of the conflict in Iran. We are dealing with that with other allies. We are taking the necessary action. But the best thing we can do is to work with others to de-escalate the situation. As I said to the House last week, I took the decision that we should not join the initial US-Israeli offensive against Iran. The Leader of the Opposition attacked me for that decision relentlessly. She said that the UK should have joined the US and Israel in the initial offensive strikes. Then yesterday, in the wake of the economic consequences, the Leader of the Opposition totally abandoned her position. She told the BBC ‘I’ve never........

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